"Was it really you who started those factories?" she asked
incredulously.

"Of course! It was part of my plans. I wasn't foolish enough to build
and run them myself. I looked for the right people that had the money
and the brains, and I let them sweat--let them sweat it out. I'm not a
manufacturer; I'm an inventor and a builder. I built the bridge over the
river; and--"

She nodded. "Yes, the bridge is good; but they say you are a schemer,"
she added suggestively.

"Certainly. But if I have schemes which'll do good, I ought to be
supported. I don't mind what they call me, so long as they don't call me
too late for dinner."

They both laughed. It was seldom he talked like this, and never had he
talked to such a listener before. "The merging of the three railways was
a good scheme, and I was the schemer," he continued. "It might mean
monopoly, but it won't work out that way. It will simply concentrate
energy and: save elbow-grease. It will set free capital and capacity for
other things."

"They say there will be fewer men at work, not only in the offices but on
the whole railway system, and they don't like that in Manitou--ah, no,
they don't!" she urged.

"They're right in a sense," he answered. "But the men will be employed
at other things, which won't represent waste and capital overlapping.
Overlapping capital hits everybody in the end. But who says all that?