Atlas Shrugged [29]
"Any . . . trouble of any kind?"
"Trouble? Not at San Sebastian. It's private property, the last piece of it left in Mexico, and that does seem to make a difference."
"Orren," Taggart asked cautiously, "what about those rumors that they're planning to nationalize the San Sebastian Mines?"
"Slander," said Boyle angrily, "plain, vicious slander. I know it for certain. I had dinner with the Minister of Culture and lunches with all the rest of the boys."
"There ought to be a law against irresponsible gossip," said Taggart sullenly. "Let's have another drink."
He waved irritably at a waiter. There was a small bar in a dark corner of the room, where an old, wizened bartender stood for long stretches of time without moving. When called upon, he moved with contemptuous slowness. His job was that of servant to men's relaxation and pleasure, but his manner was that of an embittered quack ministering to some guilty disease.
The four men sat in silence until the waiter returned with their drinks. The glasses he placed on the table were four spots of faint blue glitter in the semi-darkness, like four feeble jets of gas flame. Taggart reached for his glass and smiled suddenly.
"Let's drink to the sacrifices to historical necessity," he said, looking at Larkin.
There was a moment's pause; in a lighted room, it would have been the contest of two men holding each other's eyes; here, they were merely looking at each other's eye sockets. Then Larkin picked up his glass, "It's my party, boys," said Taggart, as they drank.
Nobody found anything else to say. until Boyle spoke up with indifferent curiosity. "Say, Jim, I meant to ask you, what in hell's the matter with your train service down on the San Sebastian Line?"
"Why, what do you mean? What is the matter with it?"
"Well, I don't know, but running just one passenger train a day is-"
"One train?"
"-is pretty measly service, it seems to me, and what a train! You must have inherited those coaches from your great-grandfather, and he must have used them pretty hard. And where on earth did you get that wood-burning locomotive?"
"Wood-burning?'
"That's what I said, wood-burning. I never saw one before, except in photographs. What museum did you drag it out of? Now don't act as if you didn't know it, just tell me what's the gag?"
"Yes, of course I knew it," said Taggart hastily. "It was just . . .
You just happened to choose the one week when we had a little trouble with our motive power-our new engines are on order, but there's been a slight delay-you know what a problem we're having with the manufacturers of locomotives-but it's only temporary."
"Of course," said Boyle. "Delays can't be helped. It's the strangest train I ever rode on, though. Nearly shook my guts out."
Within a few minutes, they noticed that Taggart had become silent.
He seemed preoccupied with a problem of his own. When he rose abruptly, without apology, they rose, too, accepting it as a command.
Larkin muttered, smiling too strenuously, "It was a pleasure, Jim.
A pleasure. That's how great projects are born-over a drink with friends."
"Social reforms are slow," said Taggart coldly. "It is advisable to be patient and cautious." For the first time, he turned to Wesley Mouch.
"What I like about you, Mouch, is that you don't talk too much."
Wesley Mouch was Rearden's Washington man.
There was still a remnant of sunset light in the sky, when Taggart and Boyle emerged together into the street below. The transition was faintly shocking to them-the enclosed barroom led one to expect midnight darkness. A tall building stood outlined against the sky, sharp and straight like a raised sword. In the distance beyond it, there hung the calendar.
Taggart fumbled irritably with his coat collar, buttoning it against the chill of the streets. He had not intended to go back to the office tonight, but he had to go back. He had to see his sister.
". . . a difficult undertaking ahead of us, Jim," Boyle was saying, "a difficult undertaking, with so many dangers