The President: A Novel

by Alfred Henry Lewis

Then Storri unrolled maps and reports from Canadian engineers which vouched the plausibility of a ship canal from a deep-water point on that eastern arm of Lake Huron called Georgian Bay to Toronto on Lake Ontario.

"It shall be two hundred feet wide," explained Storri, "and thirty feet deep. The distance is less than one hundred miles, and the fall less than one hundred feet. To dig it will be child's play; you may read the reports of the engineers; they show how advantage may be had of a Lake Simcoe, and of a little river. Here also are letters and guarantees from eminent men of Canada that their parliament will permit and protect the canal. Less than one hundred miles long; and yet that canal will cut off seven hundred."

Once in Lake Ontario at Toronto, Storri's boats, by way of the St. Lawrence—which might have to be dredged in places—were to make a straight wake for St. Petersburg, touching at English, French, and German ports. The ships were to clear in Duluth for St. Petersburg; and in St. Petersburg for Duluth. They were to fly the American flag; that, too, should mean a subsidy. Besides, there must be an American commission to confer with a Canadian commission touching the canal.

Once in St. Petersburg, Storri would have the aid of his own country in whatever might be necessary to carry him to the western terminus of his Chinese railway. He had writings in French from the Czar's government which set this forth. Only, the Russian assurances were made contingent upon a standing army of "Ifs." "If" Storri should throw a railway across China; and "if" he should launch a line of steamships across the Pacific—the same fostered by the Washington Government with a subsidy—and "if" all and singular the railway from Puget to Duluth, the Canadian Canal, and the line of steamships from Duluth to St. Petersburg—also with a subsidy—were once extant and in operation, then the Czar would step graciously in and see what might be done in forging those final Russian railway links required to unite the ends of this interesting chain.

"And you are to know," went on Storri, "that my government, the St. Petersburg Government, is paternal. It will give whatever, in the way of land rights and loans, is demanded by the exigencies of the project.

"And there," cried Storri in conclusion, as he shoved maps, papers, and concessions, Russian, Canadian, and Chinese, across to Mr. Harley, "is an idea the magnificence of which the ages cannot parallel! It is simple, it is great! We shall have three-score small companies—that is, small compared with the grand one I am to name. We shall have land and banking and lumber and mining and railway and steamship and canal companies. We shall have companies owning elevators and factories and stores and mills. Each will employ a capital of from two to two hundred millions of dollars. Over all, and to own the stock of those smaller ones, we must throw a giant company. Do you know what it will require? Do you realize what its capital must be? It will call for the cost price of an empire, my friend; it will demand full thirty billions! Think of the president of such a company! He will have rank by himself; he will tower above kings. What shall we call it? Name it for that mighty Portuguese who was first to send his ship around the globe; name it Credit Magellan!"

Mr. Harley wiped the sweat from his forehead. It was a day in October, one reasonably cool, and yet, when Storri ended with his Credit Magellan and came to a full stop, Mr. Harley was in a perspiration. It was those thirty billions that did it. Mr. Harley was no stoic to sit unmoved in the presence of such wealth, and the graphic Storri made those billions real.

When Storri had done, Mr. Harley gulped and gasped a bit, and then asked if he might retain the armful of papers for further consideration. He would like to go over them carefully; particularly those Canadian reports and assurances that related to the canal.

"My dear, good friend," cried Storri, with a magnificent wave of the hand, "you may do what you will!"

There are men, reckoned shrewd in business, whose shrewdness can be overcome by ciphers. It is as though they were wise up to seven figures. Mr. Harley was of these; he had his boundaries. His instincts were solvent, his policies sound, his suspicions full of life and courage, so that you went no higher than nine millions. Burdened beyond that, his imagination would break down; and since his instincts, his policies, and his suspicions rested wholly upon his imagination, when the latter fell the others must of need go with it. There is a depth to money just as there is to a lake; when you led Mr. Harley in beyond the nine-million-dollar mark he began to drown. When Storri—Pelion upon Ossa—piled steamship on railway, and canal on steamship, and banking and lumber and mining and twenty other companies on top of these, Mr. Harley was dazed and benumbed. When Storri concluded and capped all with his Credit Magellan, capital thirty billions, it was, so far as Mr. Harley is to be considered, like taking a child to sea. In the haze and the blur of it, Mr. Harley could see nothing, say nothing; his impulse was to be alone and collect himself. He felt as might one who has been staring at the sun. Storri's picture of an enterprise so vast that it proposed to set out the world like a mighty pan of milk, and skim the cream from two hemispheres, dazzled him and caused his wits to lose their way.