Did Mr. Weatherby ever try to "cash in" on his access to Dagny?

Question

When Mr. Weatherby's voice came on the wire, it sounded cautious: "Yes, Miss Taggart? Of what service can I be to you?"
"You can tell your boss that if he doesn't want me to quit again, as he knows I did, he is never to call me or speak to me. Anything your gang has to tell me, let them send you to tell it. I'll speak to you, but not to him. You may tell him that my reason is what he did to Hank Rearden when he was on Rearden's payroll. If everybody else has forgotten it, I haven't."
"It is my duty to assist the nation's railroads at any time, Miss Taggart." Mr. Weatherby sounded as if he were trying to avoid the commitment of having heard what he heard; but a sudden note of interest crept into his voice as he asked slowly, thoughtfully, with guarded shrewdness, "Am I to understand, Miss Taggart, that it is your wish to deal exclusively with me in all official matters? May I take this as your policy?"
She gave a brief, harsh chuckle. "Go ahead," she said. "You may list me as your exclusive property, use me as a special item of pull, and trade me all over Washington. But I don't know what good that will do you, because I'm not going to play the game, I'm not going to trade favors, I'm simply going to start breaking your laws right now - and you can arrest me when you feel that you can afford to."

Is there any evidence that Mr. Weatherby tried to "cash in" on this connection? It doesn't seem like there's all that much contact between them later in the book (apart from a dinner that they were both at, and Dagny was mostly there so that they could pretend that she agreed with their decision).

Answer 1

We don't actually hear all that much about Mr. Weatherby after this, so the text doesn't directly answer this. There are only a few references to him later in the book: Jim Taggart referred to him in passing during his meeting with Lillian Rearden, and he appeared at a dinner meeting about the state of the railroad industry.

Interestingly, the book notes of the party that Clem Weatherby was the least influential person at the dinner in spite of (or, perhaps, because of) being the technical expert on railroads. (Dagny was, of course, only there so that they could pretend that she agreed with their decisions). Also, it was Jim Taggart (not Clem Weatherby) that convinced her to attend the meeting in the first place. While the text doesn't specify either way, this at least hints at the possibility that Mr. Weatherby either wasn't successful in trading Dagny (which would make sense given her prediction that trying to trade her probably wouldn't do him any good) or that he didn't try in the first place.