Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/54

 But underneath the center of this legend had been added by means of a wooden sign, in black letters painted on a ground of white, the single word:

The automobile was the miracle which had now happened to the world. When Charlie King and George Judson shook hands that day, there was no such thing—only groping experiments with a horseless carriage. Now the carriage had got the name "automobile"—over which people stumbled somewhat—but it had it; and its commercial manufacture had begun in several American cities. One of these was this same city of Detroit, where a progressive citizen, R. E. Olds by name, astounded those of his fellow-townsmen who took note of such things by the manufacture and sale of four hundred and eighteen automobiles in a single year.

Stories were immediately rife that Olds had made an amazing profit. Scores of men rushed into the manufacture of the new vehicle—some men of ideas, some men of energy, some men of money, all men with dreams of large and glittering profits.

But Milton Morris was different from all these inventors and enthusiasts and promoters. They were young men; he was matured. He had a slow, solid business in gas engines, but it