y which once passed
through Manson's hands could have been re-bought at the original price.
Filmer and the rest reduced their stock, while the whole overbuilt,
overgrown town settled down to wait till, after a weary interval, Clark
got off the train with two strangers and drove up to the big house on
the hill. In half an hour Bowers, who was expecting them, completed
the quartet.

It was an unusual group that gathered that night in the dining room.
Ardswell and Weatherby had spent a week in Philadelphia before
Wimperley telegraphed Clark to come down. The story was plain enough.
The two Englishmen had come from London to hear it,--and it was told
well. But Wimperley and Birch shared the belief that Clark, in the
meantime, should be kept in the background, lest his hypnosis should
envelop them as of old. They held him, as it were, a reserve store of
influence to be used at the proper time, and it was not till the
financial aspect of the affair was thoroughly digested that he was
called in to play his appointed part.

Ardswell and Weatherby wanted to see whether the machine could be made
to run commercially. That it was not so running was obviously the
fault of those in charge, and Clark at once determined not to attempt
to make former mistakes less glaring. The more obvious they were
allowed to remain, the more easy their rectification. He was too much
in love with the works to dodge this sacrifice, and yet could not
conceive their continuing without him.

Assuming this onerous duty, he was perfectly aware that he dealt with
minds of a new complexion. Instead of responsive Americans, he
confronted two cool-blooded Britishers, to whom any show of spontaneity
was out of place. They were on guard, and Clark knew it, and of all
his achievements none stands out more prominently than his attitude on
the three days that followed. He became a Britisher himself. He
assumed, quite correctly, that nothing would be accepted without proof.

Tramping about the works, they were accompanied by the superintendents
of the various departments, to whom he referred the pointed questions
that came so frequently in high-pitched, well modulated English voices.
What Clark said himself was very curt and to the point. The works, he
decided, could talk for themselves. Coming last to the pulp mill,
Ardswell ran an admiring eye down the long rank of machinery, ranged
like sleeping giants in a dwindling perspective.

"I say," he rem