d done his best to catch its tone and to find
_Inspired Millionaires_ in Sir Isaac and Charterson and to bring it to
their notice and to the notice of the readers of the _Old Country
Gazette_. He felt that if only Sir Isaac and Charterson would see
getting rich as a Great Creative Act it would raise their tone and his
tone and the tone of the _Old Country Gazette_ tremendously. It wouldn't
of course materially alter the methods or policy of the paper but it
would make them all feel nobler, and Blenker was of that finer clay that
does honestly want to feel nobler. He hated pessimism and all that
criticism and self-examination that makes weak men pessimistic, he
wanted to help weak men and be helped himself, he was all for that
school of optimism that would have each dunghill was a well-upholstered
throne, and his nervous, starry contributions to the talk were like
patches of water ranunculuses trying to flower in the overflow of a
sewer.

Because you know it is idle to pretend that the talk of Charterson and
Sir Isaac wasn't a heavy flow of base ideas; they hadn't even the wit to
sham very much about their social significance. They cared no more for
the growth, the stamina, the spirit of the people whose lives they
dominated than a rat cares for the stability of the house it gnaws. They
_wanted_ a broken-spirited people. They were in such relations wilfully
and offensively stupid, and I do not see why we people who read and
write books should pay this stupidity merely because it is prevalent
even the mild tribute of an ironical civility. Charterson talked of the
gathering trouble that might lead to a strike of the transport workers
in London docks, and what he had to say, he said,--he repeated it
several times--was, "_Let_ them strike. We're ready. The sooner they
strike the better. Devonport's a Man and this time we'll _beat_ 'em...."

He expanded generally on strikes. "It's a question practically whether
we are to manage our own businesses or whether we're to have them
managed for us. _Managed_ I say!..."

"They know nothing of course of the details of organization," said
Blenker, shining with intelligence and looking quickly first to the
right and then to the left. "Nothing."

Sir Isaac broke out into confirmatory matter. There was an idea in his
head that this talk might open his wife's eyes to some sense of the
magnitude of his commercial life, to the wonder of its scale and
quality. He compared notes with Chart