"Is your boss in?
Is Ruggles in ?" The bookkeeper led Annixter to the private office in an adjoining room, ushering him through a door, on the frosted glass of which was painted the name, "Cyrus Blakelee Ruggles." Inside, a man in a frock coat, shoestring necktie, and Stetson hat, sat writing at a roller-top desk.
Over this desk was a vast map of the railroad holdings in the country about Bonneville and Guadalajara, the alternate sections belonging to the Corporation accurately plotted.

Ruggles was cordial in his welcome of Annixter.

He had a way of fiddling with his pencil continually while he talked, scribbling vague lines and fragments of words and names on stray bits of paper, and no sooner had Annixter sat down than he had begun to write, in full-bellied script, ANN ANN all over his blotting pad.
"I want to see about those lands of mine--I mean of yours--of the railroad's," Annixter commenced at once.

"I want to know when I can buy.
I'm sick of fooling along like this." "Well, Mr.Annixter," observed Ruggles, writing a great L before the ANN, and finishing it off with a flourishing D."The lands"-- he crossed out one of the N's and noted the effect with a hasty glance--"the lands are practically yours.

You have an option on them indefinitely, and, as it is, you don't have to pay the taxes." "Rot your option! I want to own them," Annixter declared.