"She means three months' work," went on the bishop thoughtfully, but without a shade of self-satisfaction, "and the biggest subscription I got was a hundred pounds. The smallest was from the owner of a large steamship line. He gave me one of the Company's official prayer books—and I never before felt about the prayer book just as I did about that one. I was begging mostly in England, and traveled about like a sort of mitered mendicant, addressing missionary meetings. It was the elderly ladies who did it, bless 'em. Then I went down to Cowes in the Isle of Wight and you see the result. There she is, solid oak and teak, a compound engine, twelve miles an hour, and good, I think, for any sea, no matter how tempestuous. I won't care now if there is no railway connection in half my diocese."
The others smiled and Filmer stroked his bushy, black whiskers.
"You're going to be a regular sybarite," he ventured.
"No," chuckled the bishop, "an anchorite." And with that sent his mind up stream to the rapids and the activity at the works. "I'm interested to see how much has been done here in what is really so short a time, only two years. It all seems to me so magnificent in its scope, and, as for Mr. Clark, who is evidently the center of the thing, one cannot but admire his incredible energy. I understand we have to thank our mayor for a good deal of it. Don't you agree with me, Mr. Manson?"
The chief constable, whose bulk had drawn up beside the others, shook his head gloomily. His face and manner were, in spite of his surroundings, still austere.
"No, sir, I don't admire Mr. Clark."
"But why?"
"Because, as I see it, he is only squandering the money of people whom he has hypnotized. He's got no balance, and the only thing he cares about is to spend—spend—spend."
Filmer smiled meaningly. The bishop glanced at him puzzled, then turned to Manson.
"Then you're not in any way impressed?"
"Not in the least."