fice there was
now the quiet magnificence of the Consolidated Company's financial
headquarters, tenanted by a small battalion of clerks and officials.
These were the metropolitan evidence of the remote activities in St.
Marys.

To thousands of Pennsylvanians this office was a focal point of extreme
interest. From it emanated announcements of work by which they were
vitally affected, for Clark had come to Philadelphia at the
psychological moment and cast his influence on those who were
accredited leaders in the community. He had said that millions waited
investment and he was right, for once Wimperley, Stoughton and Riggs
had satisfied themselves as to the project and announced their support,
money began to come in, at first in a slow trickle, but soon in a
steadily increasing flood.

It was recognized that time was required to bring to fruition the
various undertakings so rapidly conceived, and Clark's shareholders had
in them a certain stolid deliberation, aided, perhaps, by a strain of
Dutch ancestry. This kept money moving in a steady stream and in the
desired direction. From Philadelphia the attraction spread to outside
points. It was noticeable that, with the exception of Pennsylvania,
other States did not evidence any appreciable interest. The thing was
a Philadelphia enterprise, and to this city from neighboring villages
came a growing demand for stock.

Four years before this, St. Marys was practically unknown in
Philadelphia, but now at thousands of breakfast tables the morning
papers were hurriedly turned over in search of the closing quotation of
Clark's various companies. These began to increase in number, and
there commenced that gigantic pyramid in which the various stories were
interdependent and dovetailed with all the art of the financial expert.
Daily, it might be said, the interest grew, until it seemed that the
potent voice of the rapids had leaped the intervening leagues and its
dull vibrations were booming in the ears of thousands.

Moving in the procession was one whose training did not permit of
wholesale surrender to the cause. Wimperley was a railway man and had,
in consequence, a keen eye for results. His normal condition of mind
was one in which he balanced operating costs against traffic returns
and analyzed the results. And Wimperley was getting anxious. The
profits from the pulp mill, for there were profits, had gone straight
into other undertakings, and the god of construc