up her sleeve
we've not realized as yet. This is one of them."

"Then this plant is a mistake?" Thorpe got it out with some hesitation.

Clark laughed. "Some of it--so far. I make plenty of mistakes, don't
you? It seems to me it's the proportion his mistakes bear to the
things that succeed which determines a man's usefulness. I don't
believe in the one who doesn't make them."

Thorpe grinned in spite of himself. "Perhaps you're right--but I'll be
glad to know as soon as you're rolling rails. When do you expect that?"

"In six months at the latest. I'll send you a section of the first
one."

The banker drove toward the station in unaccustomed silence. Presently
he turned to Brewster. "You were right and, by George! Clark is right
too, but we must not get our mutual rectitude mixed up. He's got to go
ahead, come what may, and we've got to help him all we reasonably can,
but with us our shareholders come before his. That's the point. He
may turn out to be a private liability, but in any case he's a national
asset. I want a bit of that first rail. Good-by!"

And Clark, after waving farewell at the big gates of the works, had
gone into the rail mill and stood in the shadow in deep contemplation.
He glanced at the massive flywheel, the great dominant dynamo and the
huge, inflexible rolls. At one end were the heating furnaces, their
doors open, and gentle fires glowing softly within to slowly raise the
temperature of newly set brick. Around him was the swing of work
directed by skilled brains, and machinery moved slowly into its
appointed place of service. It was a good mill, he reflected, for a
second hand mill. For all of this the place was dead--awaiting the
pulse of power and the unremitting supply of incandescent metal.
Glancing keenly about, he experienced again that strange sound as
though between his temples, and suddenly he felt tired. The thing was
good, very good. But he too wanted to see the lambent metal spewed
from between the shining rolls.

It was a notable day in St. Marys when the first rail was actually
rolled, and symbolical to many people of many different things.
Infection spread from the words to the town, till all morning there was
a trickling stream of humanity that filed in at the big gates and moved
on toward the dull roar of the mill. Even though the mass of folk in
St. Marys still failed to grasp the full significance of the event,
they saw in it that which put thei