lders.
"There's Faith. You put Faith in 'em.... I grant our labels are a bit
emphatic. Christian Science, really. No good setting people against the
medicine. Tell me a solitary trade nowadays that hasn't to be--emphatic.
It's the modern way! Everybody understands it--everybody allows for it."
"But the world would be no worse and rather better, if all this stuff of
yours was run down a conduit into the Thames."
"Don't see that, George, at all. 'Mong other things, all our people
would be out of work. Unemployed! I grant you Tono-Bungay MAY be--not
QUITE so good a find for the world as Peruvian bark, but the point
is, George--it MAKES TRADE! And the world lives on trade. Commerce! A
romantic exchange of commodities and property. Romance. 'Magination.
See? You must look at these things in a broad light. Look at the
wood--and forget the trees! And hang it, George! we got to do these
things! There's no way unless you do. What do YOU mean to do--anyhow?"
"There's ways of living," I said, "Without either fraud or lying."
"You're a bit stiff, George. There's no fraud in this affair, I'll bet
my hat. But what do you propose to do? Go as chemist to some one who IS
running a business, and draw a salary without a share like I offer you.
Much sense in that! It comes out of the swindle as you call it--just the
same."
"Some businesses are straight and quiet, anyhow; supply a sound article
that is really needed, don't shout advertisements."
"No, George. There you're behind the times. The last of that sort was
sold up 'bout five years ago."
"Well, there's scientific research."
"And who pays for that? Who put up that big City and Guilds place at
South Kensington? Enterprising business men! They fancy they'll have a
bit of science going on, they want a handy Expert ever and again, and
there you are! And what do you get for research when you've done
it? Just a bare living and no outlook. They just keep you to make
discoveries, and if they fancy they'll use 'em they do."
"One can teach."
"How much a year, George? How much a year? I suppose you must respect
Carlyle! Well, you take Carlyle's test--solvency. (Lord! what a book
that French Revolution of his is!) See what the world pays teachers and
discoverers and what it pays business men! That shows the ones it really
wants. There's a justice in these big things, George, over and above the
apparent injustice. I tell you it wants trade. It's Trade that makes the
world g
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