--we're _dawdling_
along. My idea is that we've got to go very much faster." He slightly
emphasized the last words and the chauffeur unconsciously increased the
speed of the car. Amory and the big man laughed; the little man laughed,
too, after a pause.

"Every child," said Amory, "should have an equal start. If his father
can endow him with a good physique and his mother with some common sense
in his early education, that should be his heritage. If the father can't
give him a good physique, if the mother has spent in chasing men the
years in which she should have been preparing herself to educate her
children, so much the worse for the child. He shouldn't be artificially
bolstered up with money, sent to these horrible tutoring schools,
dragged through college... Every boy ought to have an equal start."

"All right," said the big man, his goggles indicating neither approval
nor objection.

"Next I'd have a fair trial of government ownership of all industries."

"That's been proven a failure."

"No--it merely failed. If we had government ownership we'd have the
best analytical business minds in the government working for something
besides themselves. We'd have Mackays instead of Burlesons; we'd have
Morgans in the Treasury Department; we'd have Hills running interstate
commerce. We'd have the best lawyers in the Senate."

"They wouldn't give their best efforts for nothing. McAdoo--"

"No," said Amory, shaking his head. "Money isn't the only stimulus that
brings out the best that's in a man, even in America."

"You said a while ago that it was."

"It is, right now. But if it were made illegal to have more than a
certain amount the best men would all flock for the one other reward
which attracts humanity--honor."

The big man made a sound that was very like _boo_.

"That's the silliest thing you've said yet."

"No, it isn't silly. It's quite plausible. If you'd gone to college
you'd have been struck by the fact that the men there would work twice
as hard for any one of a hundred petty honors as those other men did who
were earning their way through."

"Kids--child's play!" scoffed his antagonist.

"Not by a darned sight--unless we're all children. Did you ever see
a grown man when he's trying for a secret society--or a rising family
whose name is up at some club? They'll jump when they hear the sound of
the word. The idea that to make a man work you've got to hold gold in
front of his eyes is a growth, not