Tiffany House, New York, to announce that they had dined with James J. Hill and that he had positively agreed to sell a majority of shares at 120, and that they were all to meet at Mr. Villard's office the next morning to sign the papers. Mr. Villard told his visitors that he was very glad to hear the news, but he still doubted, in view of past vacillations of Mr. Hill, whether the bargain would go through. The callers protested against this, and insisted that Mr. Hill could not back out of his promise, and that he had positively agreed to sell. An appointment was made for ten o'clock the next morning, but Mr. Villard was the only one who kept it. After waiting an hour in vain, he called up Mr. Olcott by telephone and learned that Mr. Hill had slipped away again. In the light of the collapse of the Northern Pacific on the one hand and the great success of the Great Northern on the other, it is certainly not too much to say that, if this scheme had been carried out, it would have constituted the most important achievement in Mr. Villard's whole career, and the Northern Pacific would have had a record of unbroken and growing prosperity instead of passing a second time through insolvency.
Besides the consolidated mortgage, another very important proposition came before the Northern Pacific board at its meetings in the years 1889 and 1890. The parties who had been elected directors with Mr. Villard in 1887, in recognition of the claims of the Oregon & Transcontinental for representation, controlled the Wisconsin Central Railroad Company and the ownership of the terminal company that had been formed in order to secure an inlet into Chicago for that railroad. The terminal company had acquired a large body of real estate for right of way and for a passenger and freight station near the business centre of Chicago, for which the necessary buildings were near completion. The directors in question brought the subject of a lease of the Wisconsin Central and the terminal by the Northern Pacific before the board, which referred it to the chairman, the executive committee, and the
