“You can’t do it, I tell you!” said he, waving an eloquent hand toward the sky.  “It’s too big, the air is, as I said before.  Too damned big!  Own coal and copper, if you will, and steel and ships, here; own those buildings back there,” with a gesture at the frowning line of skyscrapers buttressing Manhattan, “but don’t buck the impossible!  And incidentally, Flint, don’t misunderstand me, either.  When I asked you if we ought to try it, I merely meant, would it be safe?  The world, Flint, is a dangerous toy to play with, too hard.  The people are perilous baubles, if you step on their corns a bit too often or too heavily.  Every Caesar has a Brutus waiting for him somewhere, with a club.

“Once let the unwashed get an idea into their low brows, and you can’t tell where it may lead them.  Even a rat fights, in its last corner.  These human rats of ours have been getting a bit nasty of late.  True, they swallowed the Limited Franchise Bill, three years ago, with only a little futile protest, so that now we’ve got them politically hamstrung.  True, there’s the Dick Military Bill, recently enlarged and perfected, so they can’t move a hand without falling into treason and court-martial.  True again, they’ve stood for the Censorship and the National Mounted Police—­the Grays—­all in the last year.  But how much more will they stand, eh?  You close your hand on their windpipes, and by God! something may happen even yet, after all!”

Flint snapped his fingers with contempt.

“Machine guns!” was all he said.

“Yes, of course,” answered Waldron.  “But there may be life in the old beast yet.  They may yet kick the apple cart over—­and us with it.  You never can tell.  And those infernal Socialists, always at it, night and day, never letting up, flinging firebrands into the powder magazine! Sometime there’s going to be one hell of a bang, Flint!  And when it comes, suave qui peut!  So go slow, old man—­go damned slow, that’s all I’ve got to say!”

“On the contrary,” said Flint, blinking in the golden spring sunshine as he peered out over the swashing brine at a raucous knot of gulls, “on the contrary, Wally, I’m going to push it as fast as the Lord will let me.  You can come in, or not, as you see fit—­but remember this, no quitter ever gets a daughter of mine!  And another thing; we’re in the year 1921, now, not 1910 or 1915.  Developments, political and otherwise, have moved swiftly, these few years past.  Then, there might have been trouble.  To-day, there can’t be.  We’ve got things cinched too tight for that!

“Ten years ago, they might have had our blood, the people might, or given us a hemp-tea party in Wall Street. today, all’s safe.  Come, be a man and grip your courage!  We can put the initial stages through in absolute secrecy—­and then, once we get our clutch on the world’s breath, what have we to fear?”

“Go slow, Flint!”