As to how it had originated, there were all sorts of stories afloat in the weekly illustrated press.

They agreed mostly on the general basis that Tomlinson had made his vast fortune by his own indomitable pluck and dogged industry.

Some said that he had been at one time a mere farm hand who, by sheer doggedness, had fought his way from the hay-mow to the control of the produce market of seventeen states.

Others had it that he had been a lumberjack who, by sheer doggedness, had got possession of the whole lumber forest of the Lake district.

Others said that he had been a miner in a Lake Superior copper mine who had, by the doggedness of his character, got a practical monopoly of the copper supply.