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Spent the afternoon at the office talking to Martigrione and Hoddy. Our Republic locomotives are doing well and there may be more purchased soon. We did a little conniving in respect to this, but most of the time was spent listening to the always fascinating Marti tell the story of the Corrigan - McKinney Steel Co. from the founding by McKinney making a fortune of $17,000,000 selling ore he bought from Jas. J. Hill at 25¢ per ton, down thru the elder Corrigan's death, the incompetency of the young Corrigan, his social climbing waitress wife, his forcing old man McKinney out, the latter's suicide, Corrigan's suddenly dropping dead, the decline of the company under four women owners, the acquisition by Republic, young McKinney's suicide, and at long last, Mrs. Corrigan the younger outlasting them all, living in England now with millions, splurging, surviving a second wealthy husband, and all in all rising far from her lowly beginnings. It sounded like a novel. Marti's good.

Bill Leggett dropped in later and there was another amusing talk about Dr. Longorio, who claims he invented a "death ray" so terrible he destroyed all record of it. Marti and Bill both checked on his being a fake and a  charlatan all the way around - they both know him well.

Miss Gender, Bill's attractive stenographer, rode downtown with us in Bill's usual taxi (his only extravagance as he keeps no car) and I quite enjoyed her proximity; in fact, I felt sure she was more prox to me than the dimensions of the cab absolutely required. We dropped her at the Terminal and I caught the 5:45 PM as usual, I wanted to buy Bill a drink but he demurred - is on the wagon temporarily.