ast of all, have faith in your own country!" Then,
with a graceful acknowledgment of the assistance of Semple and the
Ontario Government, he sat down.

For a moment there was silence, till came applause, moderate at first,
as befitted the meeting, but swelling presently into great volume.
Louder and deeper it grew while Clark sat still with the least flush on
his usually colorless cheek and a keen light in his gray eyes. He had
touched them to the quick, touched them not only by his own evident
faith and courage, but also by his superlative energy and the
inexorable comparison he had made. It was true! Cobalt was nearly
lost to them, and now the iron of Algoma had passed into other hands.
Old bankers and financiers cast their minds back and were surprised at
the number of similar instances they recalled. And here was Clark, the
protagonist, Clark the speculator, Clark the wild man from
Philadelphia, demonstrating in the cold language to which they were
accustomed and which they perfectly understood, that he had done the
same thing over again and on a more imposing scale than ever before.

The denouement was what he had anticipated and what invariably takes
place when men with calculating and professionally critical brains are
for the first time profoundly stirred by a supremely magnetic spirit
that appeals not to their emotions but to those instincts in which the
memory of lost opportunities is effaced by confidence in future
success. There was, too, a general feeling that Clark in the past was
misunderstood. They had been hard on him. It was strange for men who
were daily besought to invest in this or that to be told that their
money was not asked for; that, as Clark had put in--the job was nearly
done, capital expenditure nearly over and steady returns about to
begin. And these returns, they reflected, would go straight out of the
country to Philadelphia. All this and much more was moving through
their minds when the president moved a vote of thanks which was
tumultuously carried, whereupon Clark announced that the private car
would leave that night for St. Marys, and that he and Mr. Semple would
accompany such visitors as cared to spend a day or two at the works.

That afternoon he sent a short letter to his mother. "I have been
giving a talk on Toronto--it went quite well," he wrote in closing.
"Canadians do not attract, but certainly interest me. There's much
underneath that needs work to discover, an