As if it mattered a pin's head what Octavius Milburn thinks or don't think!" Lorne, however, left alone with his customs returns and his immigration reports, sat still, attaching a weight quite out of comparison with a pin's head to Mr Milburn's opinion.

He turned it over and over, instead of the tabulated figures that were his business: he had to show himself his way to the conclusion that such a thing could not matter seriously in the end, since Milburn hadn't a dollar involved--it would be different if he were a shareholder in the Maple Line.

He wished heartily, nevertheless, that he could demonstrate a special advantage to boiler-makers in competitive freights with New York.

What did they import, confound them! Pig-iron?
Plates and rivets?
Fortunately he was in a position to get at the facts, and he got at them with an interest of even greater intensity than he had shown to the whole question since ten that morning.

Even now, the unprejudiced observer, turning up the literature connected with the Cruickshank deputation, may notice a stress laid upon the advantages to Canadian importers of ore in certain stages of manufacture which may strike him as slightly, very slightly, special.