A. M. Chisholm

“ Can't you see that?”
“That's all right from a lawyer's standpoint, but not from ours,” said Wright. “Barker & Smith use a lot of lumber, and they're not in business to lose money. I say nobody could underbid us. They lie when they say they got a better rate. What do they want to lie for? It's money out of their pockets.” ”

“ Wright returned to the office, pulled out his tariff books and compared the rate from Falls City to Oshkook with rates from other competitive points to the latter place.
“We've got 'em skinned there, too,” he soliloquized. “They can't lay down any lumber cheaper than ours. It beats me.”
For an hour he pulled at a blackened brier and pondered the question. Then he went to Kent.
“This thing worries me,” he said. “I can't see through it. I think I'll take a run over to Oshkook and have a talk with Barker & Smith.” ”

“ There are a holy lot of wires in our business, and we have to stand in with the people who pull them, see? Sometimes we have to buy where we're told, no matter what the price is. We get square in other ways. That's about what happened in this case, otherwise you would have got the order.”
Wright felt quite elated when he took his departure, for he had justified his contention that they had not been underbidden. Wright's business was to cut logs into lumber and sell the lumber. ”