e fact that we were
tearing down the river at a perfectly gorgeous speed. The river was
crowding with traffic ahead, all was a rushing chaos of life and we were
rushing worst of all. And yet we did not seem to hurry. Old Captain Arty
sat at the wheel with the most resigned patient look in his eyes. And
drawing lazily on his cigar Dillon was watching a new line of wharves.

"You know I've found," he was saying, "the only way to live in this age
and get any pleasure out of life is to always take more time than you
need for every job you tackle. I'm taking at least seven years to this
job. I might possibly do it as well in five, but I'd miss half the fun
of it all, I'd be glaring at separate parts of it, each one as it came
along, and I'd never have time to see it full size and let it carry me
'round the world--to that baby carriage, for instance, over in Lahore."

We were rounding the Battery now. And in that sparkling morning light,
with billowy waves of sea green all around us, sudden snowy clouds of
spray, we watched for a moment the skyscraper group, the homes of the
Big Companies. The sunshine was reflected from thousands of dazzling
window eyes, little streamers of steam were flung out gaily overhead,
streets suddenly opened to our view, narrow cuts revealing the depths
below. And there came to our ears a deep humming.

"That's the brains of it all," said Dillon. "In all you'll see while
exploring the wharves you'll find some string that leads back here. And
you don't want to let that worry you. Let the muckrakers worry and plan
all they please for a sea-gate and a nation that's to run with its
brains removed. You want to remember it can't be done. You want to look
harder and harder--until you find out for yourself that there are men up
there on Wall Street without whose brains no big thing can be done in
this country. I'm working under their orders and some day I hope you'll
be doing the same. For they don't need _less_ publicity but _more_."

He left me at the Battery, and as I stood looking after him I found
myself feeling somewhat dazed. A question flashed into my mind. What
would Joe Kramer say to this? I remembered what he had said to me once:
"Tell Wall Street to get off the roof." Well, that was _his_ view. Here
was another. And this man was certainly just as sincere and decidedly
more wise and sane, altogether a larger size.

Besides, I was in love with his daughter.

CHAPTER XI

On the Manha