And we're making senators and governors and state officers and indeed, I may say, prominent citizens out of them.

Why not give Hally her show?
You damn cold-nosed Yankee Brahmins--you have Faith and you have Hope, but you have no more Charity than a sausage-grinder." The colonel rose, and cried with some asperity, "General, if you'd preach about the poor less, and pray with 'em more, you'd know more about your fellow-men, sir!" Perhaps this conversation should not have been set down here; for it has no direct relation to the movement of this narrative.

The narrative at this point should be hurrying along to tell how John Barclay and Bob Hendricks cleared up a small fortune on their wheat deal, and how that autumn Barclay bought the mill at Sycamore Ridge by squeezing its owner out, and then set about to establish four branches of the Golden Belt Wheat Company's elevator service along the line of the new railroad, and how he controlled the wheat output of three counties the next year through his enterprise.

These facts carry John Barclay forward toward his life's goal.

And while these two middle-aged gentlemen--the general and the colonel--were in the next room wrangling over the youthful love affairs of a middle-aged lady, a great dream was shaping in Barclay's head, and he did not heed them.
He was dreaming of controlling the wheat market of the Golden Belt Railroad, through railroad-rate privileges, and his fancy was feeling its way into flour, and comprehending what might be done with wheat products.
It was a crude dream, but he was aflame with it, and yet--John Barclay, aged twenty-five, was a young man with curly hair and flattered himself that he could sing.