"Twenty-five million dollars," answered John Rawn calmly. And it is to be remembered that at this time John Rawn was drawing a salary of one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month, the highest pay he had ever received in all his life; also that he was at this time a man forty-seven years of age. We have classes in America, but occasionally the lines that separate one from the other prove susceptible of successful attack at the hands of a determined man. As Rawn stood before Halsey, who only goggled and gasped at such statements as his last, he seemed a determined man. "We are going to dam the Mississippi River, a couple of hundred miles above here at the ledges," Rawn remarked casually. "For the time, that will be our central power plant. We will contract for a million and a half dollars' worth of power each year in St. Louis alone. That comes down by regular wire transmission. That is nothing, it's only a drop in the bucket. Our big killing is going to be with the other scheme--the second current--the same idea you've been trifling with. We'll go East with that." "You seem to mean almost what I mean, when I talked with you long ago--" "Do you think so?" Rawn's tone was affable and he held out his hand. "I should be happy indeed to think that we had been studying along the same lines, Charles. That will enable you all the better to understand my own ideas and my business plans. Of course--and I'll be frank with you, Charles--Mrs. Rawn and I have doubted the wisdom of Grace's engagement to a young man without means or prospects. But I can give you prospects, and you can make your own means. I'll put you in our central factory. We need good men, of course, and I need you especially, Charles. In fact, I've had you in my eye." "How do you mean?" "Well, I shall be president of the concern." Halsey smiled sardonically. "The difference between men!" "Pardon me, but you seem to think that you ought to stand in my shoes in this matter, Charles. I don't recall any warrant for that." Rawn spoke with asperity, aggrieved. "Of course, we speak loosely of certain things, all of us, and all of us have unformed wishes, all that sort of thing. I'm willing to admit, too, as I said before, that when the time comes for a great idea to be discovered, it may be almost by accident that it is discovered by this man or that.