the world has in it.

When the time came to think of his career England was in straits about
her colonial empire. The vast lands over sea wanted to take care of
themselves. It was the moment of the "British North America Act," and
that gave the father his cue for action. While his brother the earl was
fiddling the country to the tune of limited self-government for Crown
colonies, the father of John Storm conceived the daring idea of breaking
up the entire empire, including the United Kingdom, into self-governing
states. They were to be the "United States of Great Britain."

This was to be John Storm's policy, and to work it out Lord Storm set up
a house in the Isle of Man where he might always look upon his plan in
miniature. There he established a bureau for the gathering of the data
that his son would need to use hereafter. Newspapers came to him in his
lonely retreat from all quarters of the globe, and he cut out everything
relating to his subject. His library was a dusty room lined all around
with brown-paper pockets, which were labelled with the names of colonies
and counties.

"It will take us two generations to do it, my boy, but we'll alter the
history of England."

At fifty he was iron-gray, and had a head like a big owl.

Meanwhile the object of these grand preparations, the offspring of that
loveless union, had a personality all his own. It seemed as if he had
been built for a big man every way, and Nature had been arrested in the
making of him. When people looked at his head they felt he ought to have
been a giant, but he was far from rivalling the children of Anak. When