Page:Cruise of the Jasper B (1916).djvu/143

 into her in one day," he had told Captain Abernethy.

It was in the same large and simple spirit that a Russian Czar once laid a ruler across the map of his empire and, drawing a straight line from Moscow to Petersburg, commanded his engineers: "Build me a railroad to run like that." Genius has winged conceptions; it sees things as a completed whole from the first; it is only mediocrity which permits itself to be lost in details. Cleggett was like the Romanoffs in his ability to go straight to the point, but he had none of the Romanoff cruelty.

Captain Abernethy had made his arrangements accordingly. If it pleased Cleggett to have a small manufacturing plant brought to the Jasper B. instead of having the Jasper B. towed to a shipyard, it was Abernethy's business as his chief executive officer to see that this was done. The Captain had let the contract to an enterprising and businesslike fellow, Watkins by name, who had at once looked the vessel over, taken the necessary measurements, and named a good round sum for the job. With several times the usual number of skilled workmen employed at double the usual rate of pay, he guaran-