The Great Lakes by James Oliver Curwood

Not long ago I went to see William Livingstone, President of the Lake Carriers' Association -- Great Admiral, in a way, of the world's mightiest fleet of steel -- an enrolled navy of 593 ships and a tonnage of nearly one million nine hundred thousand. Unconsciously I had come to call this man the Grey Man and the Man who Knows. Both titles fit, as they will tell you from the twin Tonawandas to Duluth. For six consecutive years president of the greatest organisation of its kind on earth, an association of ships made up, if weighed, of half of the iron and steel floating on the Inland Seas, he has become a part of Lake history. I sought him for an idea. I found it.

The Grey Man was at his desk studying over the expenditure of a matter of several millions of dollars for a new canal at the "Soo. " He turned slowly -- grey suit, grey tie, grey eyes, grey beard, grey hair -- all beautifully blended. He seldom speaks first. He is always fighting to be courteous, yet the days are ten hours too short for him.