"Ye've plenty iv blarney; now out wid it." But Jim was sober.

He was awed by the magnitude of his enterprise.

There was the building in open outline.

There was no going back.

For better or for worse, it held his destiny, and not only his, but that of one other--perhaps of others still.
"A speech! a speech!" came from a dozen tongues.
"Boys," said Jim, "there's no more talk in me now nor there is in one o' them chips.