Another baron agreed. “It’s not my fault if he refuses to mine his coal properly, scrape down dangerous slate, and install proper timbering.”

“Risk is naturally attached to the trade. Fact is, with prices tumbling, we’ll be lucky to stay in business.”

Bell noticed a perplexed expression on the face of an older mine operator, who called up table, “The iniquitous price we’re paying to ship coal isn’t helping either.”

Bloom Sr. returned a tight smile. “The railroad’s hands are tied, Mr. Morrison.”

“By whom, sir? Surely not the government?”

“Them, too, but it’s not like we don’t report to our investors.”

“There you go blaming Wall Street again. Didn’t used to, in my day. We called our own tune. If the banks wanted to make money, they were welcome to invest with us. But they did not presume to tell us how to dig coal or how to ship it.”

“Well, sir, these are different days.”

Isaac Bell noticed Kenny observing his father with a thoughtful, if not troubled, expression. “Sounds like you’ll have your work cut out for you when it’s your turn to run the railroad.”

“What makes you think I will run the railroad?”

“You’re his son, his only son, and you’ve been working with him since you left Brown.”

“I’d like nothing better,” said Kenny. “And I’m trying my darnedest to learn as fast as I can. But it may not be my choice.”

“Surely your father prefers you.”

“Of course he does. That was settled the day I graduated. But what if they don’t?”

“They?” asked Bell, though he suspected the answer already.

“The banks.”

Bell glanced up the table at Mr. Bloom. Behind the boasts and the bluster, even the rich and powerful railroad president R. Kenneth Bloom, Sr., was not in command of coal.

“Which banks?” he asked.

“The New York banks.”

“Which ones?”

Kenny shrugged.

“You don’t know?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

Bell leveled a stern gaze at the railroad heir. “Not at liberty? You sound like a cautious lawyer instead of the pal who ran off to the circus with me.”

“That almost got us killed.”

“Did you have a good time?”

“Yes.”

“Which banks?”

Kenny Bloom grinned. He looked, Bell thought, drunk, embarrassed, and a little scared. “Let me answer your nosy question this way—in a question back at you. Do you believe that the formation of the U.S. Steel Corporation is an end or a beginning?”

“End or beginning of what?”

“We’re dodo birds out here, Isaac. The self-determined Pittsburgh operator is going extinct. So’s the independent railroad that hauls coal. Wall Street is killing us off. Black Jack Gleason was a dodo. So’s every man at this table. Some of them just don’t know it yet.”

“Not you. You’re young. You’re like me. It’s 1902. We’re just starting out.”

Kenny Bloom stuck out his hand. “Shake hands with the son of a dodo.”

Bell formed a grin as lopsided as Kenny’s and shook his hand.