[Selected entries from Moses Tallant's private journal, 1922-1923. Hand-written on ruled paper, bound in buckram. His own shorthand condensed here; phrasing is his.]

Hume Line, Eastbound #42. April 18, 1922.

Car 3 occupied by Mr. Edmund Hume, his clerk Mr. Wren, and two gentlemen from the Albany banks — Messrs. Tweed & Conklin. Drawing-room stateroom. I served the cold supper at 7:40. At 9:10 I turned down the beds. Between those hours I was in and out for tea twice and for cigars once, and I heard what I heard.

Mr. Hume was speaking with Mr. Tweed about an arrangement the gentlemen called "the Quay 3 venture." Mr. Hume told Mr. Tweed that the venture had, in its first two years of operation, returned to him personally — personally, he said, not to the Hume Shipping Company — the sum of $84,000. He said this in the tone of a man discussing the yield of a good bond. Mr. Tweed said he was impressed. Mr. Hume said that the venture required "a discretion which my dockmaster and my Chief Keane of the Harbor Police supply in equal measure." Mr. Conklin asked whether the venture was secure. Mr. Hume said: "Port Hume is not Chicago. There are no shooting stars here. There are only old families and old arrangements, and when they mesh they mesh for the term of a generation."

I did not linger past what was necessary. The gentlemen retired by 11:30. I was up at 5:00 for the Albany approach.

I do not write this to my wife.

June 3, 1922.

Mr. Hume and Mr. Reddick (company counsel). Drawing-room, return trip Albany to Port Hume. Mr. Reddick speaking about "the Cadenza cover" and the advisability of diversifying to a second trucking concern. Mr. Hume: "Emil has served since 1919. His son is in the business. The son is compliant. Do not create a complication we do not need." Mr. Reddick: "Understood."

Mr. Reddick also said — this is why I am writing it — "the Vasko widow has not contested her husband's death settlement." Mr. Hume said: "Good." Mr. Reddick said: "The Harriss woman at the Clarion is still in McCausland's ear. He will write something if she lets him. She has let him once. She may not let him again." Mr. Hume said: "Let me consider whether to do anything about her."

He did not say what.

November 14, 1922.

A new man in car 3 — Mr. Whitlock, who I believe is the Mayor. Mr. Hume and Mr. Whitlock played cribbage for an hour after dinner. Mr. Hume won. They spoke of the City Police chief appointment. Mr. Whitlock said "Royland has been useful" and Mr. Hume said "Royland has been serviceable, which is a different thing, and his retirement in 1925 will be welcome." Mr. Whitlock asked whom Mr. Hume would have after Royland. Mr. Hume said: "I will tell you in eighteen months. Not before." Mr. Whitlock said: "Fair."

I did not know, before this trip, how much of the municipal administration of Port Hume was discussed in a Pullman drawing-room on the Hume Line. I know now.

March 9, 1923.

Sat up with Rev. Fleming on my day off, at his study at Bethel, and told him some of what I am writing in this book. Not dates. Not names. The shape of it.

Rev. Fleming said: "Brother Tallant, the Lord has given you a front-row seat at a play you did not ask to attend." I said: "Yes, Reverend." He said: "Keep your notes. The time of the writing and the time of the publication are not the same time. Keep them and keep silent, and one day when a boy of our community asks what his fathers saw of this country in these years, put this book in his hand, and if it costs him to read it, at least it will not cost him to know."

He blessed the notebook, I believe partly in jest and partly not. I have kept on writing.

June 21, 1923.

I stopped Mr. Gunderson the harbormaster's clerk after a Sunday service (Bethel hosted a joint service with St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran that morning; I was visiting; he was visiting too) and I asked him whether he had ever had occasion to look at the night books of the Line. He said he had not. I think he understood me. I did not say more and neither did he. We are two men in the same city who have seen similar things from different angles. We may not be two men who can speak of them together. I did not press.

October 2, 1923.

Mr. Hume on the Eastbound again, with his nephew Mr. P. Westbrook this time. Westbrook drunk, quiet, looked out of the window most of the dinner. Mr. Hume tried to engage him in a conversation about the Blackwell rivalry and Westbrook said, too loudly, "Uncle, leave off the Thorpes for one evening. They are not a story I can carry with me tonight." Mr. Hume did not reply. He signaled for coffee. I brought it.

Westbrook said to me directly, in the drawing-room, while Mr. Hume was in the lavatory: "Do you ever wish you had a small quiet house in Ohio somewhere, Mr. Tallant, and not this line of work?" I said, "Some days, sir. Most days, my work is my work." Westbrook said: "A good answer. I will not remember I asked." He nodded. Mr. Hume returned. Westbrook resumed looking out the window.

I walked back to the pantry. I was shaking very slightly. A man of Westbrook's station speaks to me in the drawing-room of the Line no more than once a year.

[the notebook continues. Two dozen further entries of similar texture through the fall of 1923. Moses keeps writing.]