thing but incredulous that he stood
sincere in the position he had taken. This was what hurt him most. The
applause which his associates had awarded him had been as that won by a
clever actor rather than, as he had believed, the responsive echo forced
from their souls by the battle notes of a new cause. Their acceptance of
his doctrines had been because his arguments had persuaded them of the
material side of the enterprise. The very magnetism which they had felt
exercised by him upon themselves they had capitalized as an asset to be
assayed when once the ore was stopped. All the high-sounding claims were
turned at this moment into empty platitudes. All his promises were
valueless beyond his personal strength to make them good. To this extent
Allen had been right, but it was not too late to recognize the danger
and to meet it. His associates saw the Robert Gorham they thought they
had known for five years sitting in repose before them while this
realization of the situation surged through his brain--they saw the real
Robert Gorham when he rose to his feet, and faced them with a force they
felt before a word was spoken.

"I could not have believed it possible," he said, "for a moment such as
this ever to arrive. I have lived in this business Utopia for five
years, blind to the fact that those who labored with me failed utterly
to comprehend or to appreciate the sincerity of my motives or the
integrity of my purpose. I admit that I question my ability to make
clear to you by words what my acts have not conveyed. During these
years, and until to-day, you have accepted my judgment as supreme, and
for the first time I realize that this was not because you believed in
it, but because you saw in it advantage to yourselves. The gratification
which I have enjoyed from this supposed tribute has vanished, like the
empty bubble that it was. It has been said that the Consolidated
Companies was a one-man corporation, which I have denied, believing that
my labors were rather those of the pioneer, showing the way to those
associated with me who would naturally follow my footsteps. Again, I was
wrong: this has been a one-man corporation, and it is so to-day. Not
only has the creation of it been mine and mine alone, but also the
successful putting into execution of those principles which I alone
devised. The credit for this, which I have until now proudly conceded to
you, I assume wholly for myself, and I also give myself the further
cre