t I conceive, while I cannot, is that they have
considerable money of their own and command of much greater sums not
their own, while I have neither. They have the tools and the materials.
I have neither. The clumsiest mechanic, who has tools and materials to
work with, can do things that the most skillful mechanic who has neither
tools nor materials, cannot do.

"I have decided, therefore, to possess myself of tools and materials, in
order that I may make myself a master workman, and do my part in the
great nation-building enterprises of the time and country."

"Would you mind explaining what you mean by that?" interrupted Hallam,
whose eagerness in listening had caused him to let his second cup of
coffee grow cold.

Duncan arose, without answering, crossed the room, pressed the button,
and then said:

"It is a subject that I very much wish to talk with you about. But your
coffee is cold. When you get a fresh cup, I'll explain."

He said no more till the waiter came, served the coffee and left the
room. Then he began:

"People who live all their lives in the mountains have no adequate
conception or perception of the grandeur of the scenery that surrounds
them. We never any of us fully understand the things against which we
'rub our eyes,' as a witty Frenchman has put it. It is for that reason,
perhaps, that what is going on here in the West does not impress you in
the same way in which it impresses me. You men of affairs are just now
beginning to do the very greatest work of nation building that has ever
been done since time began. But you are so close to your work that you
do not appreciate its collossal proportions. You have no perspective. In
that I have the advantage of you. Coming, as I do, out of the dead past,
contemplating the present as I do, and looking to the future as I must,
I see the grandeur to which your detailed work is tending, with a
clearness of vision impossible to you because of your nearness to it.
May I go on and set forth the whole of my thought?"

"Yes, certainly. I want to hear. Go on!"

"Well, then, let me explain and illustrate. A little while ago, in going
over your accounts, I discovered that the cotton and grain you shipped
from Cairo to New York must be five times transferred from one car to
another. That entailed enormous and needless expense in addition to the
delay. A few weeks ago I suggested to a conference of railroad nabobs at
your house that you should organize a line o