call executive."

Mr. Harley felt profoundly flattered, and showed it; Storri pushed on,
watching the other with the tail of his eye. The slant survey was
satisfactory; Mr. Harley showed half upon his guard and wholly
interested.

"I have conceived projects so gigantic they will stagger belief. And yet
they are feasible; you will make them so. You will take them and girdle
the earth with them as Saturn is girdled by his rings. Observe now!
These, my designs, have the good wishes of my Czar; and next to him you
are that one to whom they are first told. Why do I come so far with my
dreams? I will tell you; it was by command of my Czar.

"'Storri, you must go to America,' were his words. 'You would only stun
Europe; you would not gain her aid. Go to America. There, and there
only, will you find what you require. They, and they of all men, have
the courage, the brains, the money, the enterprise, and--shall I
say?--the honor!'"

Having quoted his Czar in these good opinions of Americans, Storri
rapidly and in clearest sequence laid out his programmes. Before he was
half finished, Mr. Harley went following every word with all his senses.
Storri was lucid; Storri was hypnotic; Storri had his projects so
faultlessly in hand that, as he piled up words, he piled up conviction
in the breast of Mr. Harley.

Storri began with China. Being equipped for the conversation--which had
not been so much the result of romantic chance as Mr. Harley might have
supposed--he laid upon the table a square of yellow silk. It was written