“This is a daughter of one of the Morgans,” he said, as the mare began to show her stride. “They're breeding for less weight and more power and quicker action. It's a tendency of the times. Foot and wheel are beginning to move faster. Everybody is tired of going slow. Mr. Bonner says that he'll show us a horse by-and-by that can trot in 2.15.
“It's a funny thing,” he added, after a moment's pause; “my factory kind o' sets the pace for this town. It starts the day and ends it. My whistle sends every one to work, and tells 'em when to knock off, in and out o' the shop. When it sounds in the morning you'll see men who started a little late running to get to their jobs. It's brought new ideas and business methods and a quicker step into the old town.” The hand-made gentleman took me to my train soon after dinner. Pearl was there to see me off.
“I'm glad you're comin' here, Jake,” he said, as he shook my hand. “You've always been a great help to me.”
“I don't see how,” was my answer.
“You've helped me to live,” he said, with a sober look. “As soon as you get back you and McCarthy will go down and see Vanderbilt. I've got it all arranged. The medals helped me. It's the only time I ever used 'em. They landed me in the Commodore's office, and I had a talk with him straight from the shoulder. Told him if he went into the transatlantic ferry business he'd lose every dollar he had, as Collins had done. He wanted to know what made me think so, an' I told him that he couldn't compete with the English, who had been doing that job for centuries with cheaper labor than we could hire. I explained to him that the business was a growth and not a product; that one might as well try to compete with the forest by planting trees. He agreed with me.”
At Heartsdale I found my sister in love with her work, and had a talk with the superintendent in Montreal, who promised to retain her. That evening, as we sat by the fire at home, I got a view of myself that was quite new to me. For a time it filled me with bitterness, but taught me what I had to know, and set me forward in the race a little.
Report of my adventure on the back of the rope-walker had got to Heartsdale—to this day I know not how, although I suspected Bony. It had set idle tongues wagging. A letter to my sister, from one of her friends on a far side of the county, told how she had heard the story, and, of course, I confessed the truth. The harm it did lay in this: It singled me out and stood me up for scrutiny. Follies which would have been forgotten were enlarged and raked together and made to shine forth. The undertaker and the carver of epitaphs had marked me for execution, and, assisted by the Heartsdale Comet Band, had made hopeful progress. They had travelled far, and everywhere people had wished to know about me, and I had been well set off as a conceited, dare-devil sort of a ne'er-do-well who had been concerned in the smuggling business.
I began to understand why Colonel Busby thought so ill of me, and there was only one way to correct his opinion, and my mother made that clear. I must needs go to work and make a character for myself and show it in my conduct—as the hand-made gentleman had done. My way would not be quite like his, but I must be hand-made and upon honor, as he put it. The ready-made article had not stood the wear.
“Perhaps you had better put the pretty girl out of your head for a while,” said my mother. “You can keep her in your heart, and that will give you something to work for. But you mustn't give your brain to her. You've got to make a man of yourself, and you need your brain for your work.”
“Suppose she marries somebody else,” I suggested.