"
"Have you yourself seen any evidences of rival influences hindering
the work?" asked Kennedy.
Orton carefully weighed his reply. "To begin with," he answered at
length, "while I was pushing the construction end, the Five-Borough
was working with the state legislature to get a bill extending the
time-limit of the franchise another year. Of course, if it had gone
through it would have been fine for us. But some unseen influence
blocked the company at every turn. It was subtle; it never came
into the open. They played on public opinion as only demagogues of
high finance can, very plausibly of course, but from the most
selfish and ulterior motives. The bill was defeated."
I nodded. I knew all about that part of it, for it was in the
article which I had been writing for the Star.
"But I had not counted on the extra year, anyhow," continued Orton,
"so I wasn't disappointed. My plans were laid for the shorter time
from the start. I built an island in the river so that we could
work from each shore to it, as well as from the island to each shore,
really from four points at once. And then, when everything was going
ahead fine, and we were actually doubling the speed in this way,
these confounded accidents" - he was leaning excitedly forward - "
and lawsuits and delays and deaths began to happen.
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