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Boston, Mass
Tuesday, May 7, '40.

Neil got in this morning and had been unable to get much out of Ernie last night because there were other B&M men in attendance unavoidably. Roy decided that we should go to Concord ourselves today and see what we could do. So we made a dinner date with Ernie for 6 PM in Concord, where he is supervising the heavy overhaul of the Flying Yankee. Before leaving Boston, we had a long talk with Tom Knight, to whom I told my story about Hercules. Tom agreed to touch up French again tomorrow. We left at 4:15 PM and had a hair raising 85 mile ride to Concord thru evening traffic, getting there at 6:15 PM.

We went to the Eagle Hotel for dinner, carefully refraining from any business talk until after the very satisfactory dinner. Then we repaired to Ernie's room at the Endicott and went at it. To my amazement, Ernie began defending the Hercules engine and running down the Caterpillar which a month ago was the cat's pajamas in his opinion as well as Fred Buckpitt's. Ernie quibbled over the most minor points, finally admitted the only Hercules DFXD engine was in a 3rd Avenue bus in New York! In spite of himself, he couldn't hold back a smirk at this. It was obvious he was just wallowing around, probably as in the dark as to the purpose of our visit was we were as to the purpose of the B&M request. He claimed there was a "nigger in the woodpile somewhere" - that we should promptly offer the Hercules at a reduction of say $5000 -others had. He finally said Gus Munster wanted a price