Miss Florence had led the young men across the deck of the boat, with its planking as clean, its brass-work as polished, its padded furniture, of brown straw, as fresh, its Oriental rugs as precious as though this flooring, this metal, these armchairs, these carpets belonged to one of the villas on the coast, instead of to this yacht which had been tossed on all the waves of the Atlantic and Pacific. And the room into which the young girl introduced them could not have presented a different aspect had it been situated in Marionville on the fifth story of one of those colossal buildings which line the streets with their vast cliffs of iron and brick. Three secretaries were seated at their desks. One of them was copying letters on a typewriter, another was telephoning a despatch, the third was writing in shorthand at the dictation of the little, thick-set, gray-faced man whom Corancez had shown to Hautefeuille at the table of _trente-et-quarante_. This king of Ohio paused to greet his visitors:-- "Impossible to accompany you, gentlemen," he said. "While you are taking your promenade," he added, with that air of tranquil defiance by which the true Yankee manifests his contempt for the Old World, "we shall prepare a pretty voyage for you. But you Frenchmen are so contented at home that you never go anywhere. Do you know the Lake Region? Wait, here is the map. We have there, just on these four lakes--Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie--sixty thousand ships, amounting to thirty-two million tons, which transport every year three thousand five hundred million tons of merchandise. The problem is to put this fleet and the cities on the lakes--Duluth, Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Marionville--in communication with Europe. The lakes empty into the ocean through the St. Lawrence. That is the road to follow. Unfortunately we have a little obstacle to overcome at the outlet of Lake Erie, an obstacle once and a half as high as the Arc de l'Etoile at Paris. I mean Niagara, and also the rapids at the outlet of Lake Ontario. They have made seven or eight canals, with locks which permit the passage of little boats. But we wish a free passage for any transatlantic vessel. This gentleman is about to conclude the affair," and Marsh pointed to the secretary at the telephone. "Our capital has been completed this morning--two hundred million dollars. In two years I shall sail home in the _Jenny_ without once disembarking. I wish Marionville to become the Liverpool of the lakes. It has already a hundred thousand inhabitants. In two years we shall have a hundred and fifty thousand; that is equal to your Toulouse. In ten years, two hundred and fifty thousand--that is equal to your Bordeaux--and in twenty years we shall reach the five hundred and seventeen thousand of old Liverpool. We are a young people, and everything young should begin by progressing. You will excuse me for a few minutes, gentlemen?"