"He's
a dynamo running the whole show-eh!"
The old man seemed to grow shorter, but as he thrust his shoulders
forward, it was like a machine gathering energy and power.
"I'll tell you, friends, what Ingolby is trying to do," he said in a low
voice vibrating with that force which belongs neither to age nor youth,
but is the permanent activity uniting all ages of a man. "Of course,
Ingolby is ambitious and he wants power. He tries to do the big things in
the world because there is the big thing to do--for sure. Without such
men the big things are never done, and other men have less work to do,
and less money and poorer homes. They discover and construct and design
and invent and organize and give opportunities. I am a working man, but I
know what Ingolby thinks. I know what men think who try to do the big
things. I have tried to do them."
The crowd were absolutely still now, but the big river-driver shook
himself free of the eloquence, which somehow swayed them all, and said:
"You--you look as if you'd tried to do big things, you do, old skeesicks.
I bet you never earned a hundred dollars in your life." He turned to the
crowd with fierce gestures. "Let's go to Lebanon and make the place
sing," he roared. "Let's get Ingolby out to talk for himself, if he wants
to talk.
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