cs? It's politics that makes the commerce possible. There's
that fellow Barouche--Barode Barouche--he's got no money, but he's a
Minister, and he can make you rich or poor by planning legislation at
Ottawa that'll benefit or hamper you. That's the kind of business that's
worth doing--seeing into the future, fashioning laws that make good men
happy and bad men afraid. Don't I know! I'm a master-man in my business;
nothing defeats me. To me, a forest of wild wood is the future palace of
a Prime Minister. A great river is a pathway to the palace, and all the
thousands of men that work the river are the adventurers that bring the
booty home--"

"That bring 'the palace to Paris,' eh!" interrupted Carnac, laughing.

"Paris be damned--that bring the forest to Quebec. How long did it take
you to make that?" he added with a nod towards the statue.

"Oh, I did it in a day--six hours, I think; and he stood like that for
three hours out of the six. He was great, but he'd no more sense of
civilization than I have of Heaven."

"You don't need to have a sense of Heaven, you need to have a sense of
Hell. That prevents you from spoiling your own show. You're playing with
life's vital things."

"I wonder how much you've got out of it all, father," Carnac remarked
with a smile. He lit a cigarette. "You do your job in style. It's been a
great career, yours. You've made your big business out of nothing."

"I had something to start with. Your grandfather had a business worth
not much, but it was a business, and the fundamental thing is to have
machinery to work with when you start life. I had that. My father was
narrow, contracted and a blunderer, but he made good in a small way."

"And you in a big way," said Carnac, with admiration and criticism in
his eyes.

He realized that John Grier had summed him up fairly when he said he was
playing with life's vital things. Somehow, he saw the other had a grip
upon essentials lacking in himself; he had his tooth in the orange, as
it were, and was sucking the juice of good profit from his labours. Yet
he knew how much trickery and vital evasion and harsh aggression there
were in his father's business life.

As yet he had never seen Tarboe--he had been away in the country
the whole year nearly--but he imagined a man of strength, abilities,
penetration and deep power. He knew that only a man with savage
instincts could work successfully with John Grier; he knew that Grier
was without mercy in