The World for Sale, Complete

by Gilbert Parker

  CHAPTER III. CONCERNING INGOLBY AND THE TWO TOWNS

  A word about Max Ingolby.

  He was the second son of four sons, with a father who had been afailure; but with a mother of imagination and great natural strengthof brain, yet whose life had been so harried in bringing up a family onnothing at all, that there only emerged from her possibilities a greatwill to do the impossible things. From her had come the spirit whichwould not be denied.

  In his boyhood Max could not have those things which ladsprize--fishing-rods, cricket-bats and sleds, and all such things; buthe could take most prizes at school open to competition; he could win inthe running-jump, the high-jump, and the five hundred yards' race; andhe could organize a picnic, or the sports of the school or town--atno cost to himself. His finance in even this limited field had beenbrilliant. Other people paid, and he did the work; and he did it withsuch ease that the others intriguing to crowd him out, suffered failureand came to him in the end to put things right.

  He became the village doctor's assistant and dispenser at seventeenand induced his master to start a drug-store. He made the drug-store asuccess within two years, and meanwhile he studied Latin and Greekand mathematics in every spare hour he had--getting up at five in themorning, and doing as much before breakfast as others did in a wholeday. His doctor loved him and helped him; a venerable Archdeacon, anOxford graduate, gave him many hours of coaching, and he went to theUniversity with three scholarships. These were sufficient to carry himthrough in three years, and there was enough profit-sharing from thedrug-business he had founded on terms to shelter his mother and hisyounger brothers, while he took honours at the University.

  There he organized all that students organize, and was called in at lastby the Bursar of his college to reorganize the commissariat, which hedid with such success that the college saved five thousand dollars ayear. He had genius, the college people said, and after he had takenhis degree with honours in classics and mathematics they offered him aprofessorship at two thousand dollars a year.

  He laughed ironically, but yet with satisfaction, when the professorshipwas offered. It was all so different from what was in his mind forthe future. As he looked out of the oriel window in the sweet gothicbuilding, to the green grass and the maples and elms which made thecollege grounds like an old-world park, he had a vision of himselfpermanently in these surroundings of refinement growing venerable withyears, seeing pass under his influence thousands of young men directed,developed and inspired by him.

  He had, however, shaken himself free of this modest vision. He knewthat such a life would act like a narcotic to his real individuality.He thirsted for contest, for the control of brain and will; he wantedto construct; he was filled with the idea of simplifying things, ofeconomizing strength; he saw how futile was much competition, and howthe big brain could command and control with ease, wasting no force,saving labour, making the things controlled bigger and better.

  So it came that his face was seen no more in the oriel window. Witha mere handful of dollars, and some debts, he left the world ofscholarship and superior pedagogy, and went where the head offices ofrailways were. Railways were the symbol of progress in his mind. Therailhead was the advance post of civilization. It was like Cortez andhis Conquistadores overhauling and appropriating the treasures of longgenerations. So where should he go if not to the Railway?

  His first act, when he got to his feet inside the offices of thePresident of a big railway, was to show the great man how two "outside"proposed lines could be made one, and then further merged into thecompany controlled by the millionaire in whose office he sat. He got hischance by his very audacity--the President liked audacity. In attemptingthis merger, however, he had his first failure, but he showed that hecould think for himself, and he was made increasingly responsible. Aftera few years of notable service, he was offered the task of building abranch line of railway from Lebanon and Manitou north, and northwest,and on to the Coast; and he had accepted it, at the same time planningto merge certain outside lines competing with that which he had in hand.For over four years he worked night and day, steadily advancing towardshis goal, breaking down opposition, manoeuvring, conciliating, fighting.

  Most men loved his whimsical turn of mind, even those who were theagents of the financial clique which had fought him in their effortsto get control of the commercial, industrial, transport and bankingresources of the junction city of Lebanon. In the days when vast marketswould be established for Canadian wheat in Shanghai and Tokio, thenthese two towns of Manitou and Lebanon on the Sagalac would be like theswivel to the organization of trade of a continent.

  Ingolby had worked with this end in view. In doing so he had tried toget what he wanted without trickery; to reach his goal by playing thegame according to the rules, and this policy nonplussed his rivals andassociates. They expected secret moves, and he laid his cards on thetable. Sharp, quick, resolute and ruthless he was, however, if he knewthat he was being tricked. Then he struck, and struck hard. The war ofbusiness was war and not "gollyfoxing," as he said. Selfish, stubbornand self-centred he was in much, but he had great joy in the natural andsincere, and he had a passionate love of Nature. To him the flatprairie was never ugly. Its very monotony had its own individuality.The Sagalac, even when muddy, had its own deep interest, and when it wasfull of logs drifting down to the sawmills, for which he had found themoney by interesting capitalists in the East, he sniffed the stingingsmell of the pines with elation. As the great saws in the mills, forwhich he had secured the capital, throwing off the spray of mangledwood, hummed and buzzed and sang, his mouth twisted in the droll smileit always wore when he talked with such as Jowett and Osterhaut, whoseidiosyncrasies were like a meal to him; as he described it once to someof the big men from the East who had been behind his schemes, yet whocavilled at his ways. He was never diverted from his course by such men,and while he was loyal to those who had backed him, he vowed that hewould be independent of these wooden souls in the end. They and thegreat bankers behind them were for monopoly; he was for organization andfor economic prudence. So far they were necessary to all he did; but itwas his intention to shake himself free of all monopoly in good time.One or two of his colleagues saw the drift of his policy and would havethrown him over if they could have replaced him by a man as capable, whowould, at the time, consent to grow rich on their terms.

  They could not understand a man who would stand for a half-hour watchinga sunset, or a morning sky dappled with all the colours that shake froma prism; they were suspicious of a business-mind which could gloat overthe light falling on snow-peaked mountains, while it planned a greatbridge across a gorge in the same hour; of a man who would quote a verseof poetry while a flock of wild pigeons went whirring down a pine-girtvalley in the shimmer of the sun.

  On the occasion when he had quoted a verse of poetry to them, one ofthem said to him with a sidelong glance: "You seem to be dead-struck onNature, Ingolby."

  To that, with a sly quirk of the mouth, and meaning to mystify hiswooden-headed questioner still more, he answered: "Dead-struck?Dead-drunk, you mean. I'm a Nature's dipsomaniac--as you can see," headded with a sly note of irony.

  Then instantly he had drawn the little circle of experts into adiscussion upon technical questions of railway-building and finance,which made demands upon all their resources and knowledge. In thatconference he gave especial attention to the snub-souled financier whohad sneered at his love of Nature. He tied his critic up in knots ofself-assertion and bad logic which presently he deftly, deliberately andskilfully untied, to the delight of all the group.

  "He's got as much in his ten years in the business as we've got outof half a life-time," said the chief of his admirers. This was thePresident who had first welcomed him into business, and introduced himto his colleagues in enterprise.

  "I shouldn't be surprised if the belt flew off the wheel some day,"savagely said Ingolby's snub-souled critic, whose enmity was held incheck by the fact that on Ingolby, for the moment, depended the safe
tyof the hard cash he had invested.

  But the qualities which alienated an expert here and there caught theimagination of the pioneer spirits of Lebanon. Except those who,for financial reasons, were opposed to him, and must therefore pitthemselves against him, as the representatives of bigger forces behindthem, he was a leader of whom Lebanon was combatively proud. At last hecame to the point where his merger was practically accomplished, and aproblem arising out of it had to be solved. It was a problem which taxedevery quality of an able mind. The situation had at last become acute,and Time, the solvent of most complications, had not quite eased thestrain. Indeed, on the day that Fleda Druse had made her journey downthe Carillon Rapids, Time's influence had not availed. So he had gonefishing, with millions at stake--to the despair of those who wererisking all on his skill and judgment.

  But that was Ingolby. Thinking was the essence of his business, notTime. As fishing was the friend of thinking, therefore he fished inSeely's Eddy, saw Fleda Druse run the Carillon Rapids, saved her fromdrowning, and would have brought her in pride and peace to her own home,but that she decreed otherwise.