t of the finest man I ever knew, and that your conduct, since he left
us, is a vindication of his wisdom. America has gone stark mad on the
subject of money. The day is not far distant when it has got to decide
whether property shall rule work or work shall rule property. Your father
was a courageous pioneer. All right-thinking men honor him."

This, a fortnight after his return from Europe, from marrying Janet to
Aristide, Viscount Brunais. He had yielded to his secret
snobbishness--Matilda thought it was her diplomacy--and had given Janet a
dowry so extravagant that when old Saint Berthe heard the figures, he
took advantage of the fact that only the family lawyer was present to
permit a gleam of nature to show through his mask of elegant indifference
to the "coarse side of life." Whitney had the American good sense to
despise his wife, his daughter, and himself for the transaction. For
years furious had been his protestations to his family, to his
acquaintances, and to himself against "society," and especially against
the incursions of that "worm-eaten titled crowd from the other side." So
often had he repeated those protests that certain phrases had become
fixedly part of his conversation, to make the most noise when he was
violently agitated, as do the dead leaves of a long-withered but still
firmly attached bough. Thus he was regarded in Chicago as an American of
the old type; but being human, his strength had not been strong enough to
resist the taint in the atmosphere he had breathed ever since he began to
be very rich and to keep the company of the pretentious. His originally
sound constitution had been gradually undermined, just as "doing like
everybody else"--that is, everybody in his set of pirates disguised under
merchant flag and with a few deceptive bales of goods piled on deck--had
undermined his originally sound business honor.

Arthur answered, thanking him for the offered position, but declining it.
"What you say about my work," he wrote, "encourages me to ask a favor. I
wish to be transferred from one mechanical department to another until I
have made the round. Then, perhaps, I may venture to ask you to renew
your offer."

Whitney showed this to Ross. "Now, _there's_ the sort of son I'd be proud
of!" he exclaimed.

Ross lifted his eyebrows. "Really!" said he. "Why?"

"Because he's a _man_," retorted his father, with obvious intent of
satirical contrast. "Because within a year or two he'll know th