"I imagine you are better equipped to answer that than I," said Potter. "A great deal depends on the start. If a motor were adopted and orders given _now_, we could probably begin making deliveries in six or seven months--if we were assured the material and the labor--and if factories could be found to equip for their manufacture?" "Have you any doubts of that?" "I've estimated that the initial cost of equipping my father's plant to make engines alone will be upward of half a million dollars," Potter said. "I don't know how he would feel about going ahead to that extent. Six months ago I would have said he would never consider it. Now I rather believe he would.... Some manufacturers here would jump at the opportunity--from patriotic motives--without a thought of profit. Others would have to be shown where the profit was." "Would cost and ten per cent. interest them?" "If you could get them waked up. You'd have to get them to think less about themselves and more about the country." "But don't you think a change is taking place in public opinion?" Potter paused before replying. "Yes," he said. "There has been a change, a slow movement. Right now I wouldn't even guess how far it had traveled." The major leaned back in his chair and gazed at the table-cloth; his companions did not speak. At the next table two men in the prime of their middle age were talking in tones louder than one expects in such a place. But these men were privileged. Both were millionaires; both were manufacturers of automobiles; both had worked, less than twenty years ago, as machinists at the bench. They were big men, rough men, but able men. "This gin they serve here can't be touched in town," said the heavier of the two. "It's bully.... Reminds me, are you getting ready for the long thirst, Bob?" "You can lay a sweet bet on that. I'm planting enough in the cellar to last till the birdies nest again--and I'm looking out for more.... Hey, waiter." The waiter approached. "Call the steward. I want to talk to him." Presently the steward appeared. "Say," began the millionaire who had summoned him, "how much of this gin you got? Enough to carry you through to May first?" May 1st, 1917, was the date on which the state of Michigan became an arid waste. "I'll have a surplus, sir." "How much?" The steward told him. "Um!... What would that come to?" The steward figured a moment. "About seven thousand dollars, sir." "I'll take it. Have it delivered--" "Whoa there!" interrupted his companion. "You'll take half of it. I want the other half myself." "Nothing doing. There ain't enough to split.... But I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll flop the dice with you for it. Winner gets the gin, loser gets the bill." The other hammered the table with his palm. "Fetch on your dice," he said, boisterously. A box of dice was quickly set before them. "Best two out of three?" asked Bob. "Naw.... Let's have swift action. One flop."