“Captain, you took your disappointment like a man.”
“May I ask how Gratia is?”
“Very well and happy. She is engaged to be married to Mr. James Hogg.”
“I congratulate Jimmy, and, if I may, I congratulate you.”
“You may. I think I’m going to get a pretty able son-in-law. It may interest you to know that she accepted him as Hogg, but that ain’t his real name. It seems he’s a Huguenot. I don’t know much about the Huguenots, but I know they were good workmen.”
“Mr. Ferry, I called up Jimmy’s boarding-house day before yesterday, and was told that he was busy writing a speech. Can you throw any light on that?”
“Yes,” laughed Asher. “I’ve made him a departmental manager, and his men gave him a dinner night before last. I was invited, but couldn’t attend. The committee that came to see me showed me a petition they were presenting him—a request to change his name to La Hogue. So I guess he was writing a speech of acceptance. Now tell me what we are going to do when that stuff”—here Asher pointed to the coal on the dock they were passing—“is all gone.”
“Why,” said Marvin, “I suppose you’ll use hydro-electric.”
Asher turned and scrutinized his companion with myopic luminous eyes.
“Young man, that answer ain’t enough. You are capable of a better answer than that. If every drop of water that falls in the United States was utilized to produce power, it would produce no more than we are getting from coal right now.”