," said she, "and in just this
way. But it couldn't have been delayed long. With so much to be done and
so few able or willing to do it, the world can't wait long enough for a
man really to ripen. It's lucky that you inherit from your father so many
important things that most men have to spend their lives in learning."

"Do you think so?" said he, brightening; for, with the "chance" secure,
he was now much depressed by the difficulties which he had been
resurveying from the inside point of view.

"You understand how to manage men," she replied, "and you understand
business."

"But, unfortunately, this isn't business."

He was right. The problem of business is, in its two main factors,
perfectly simple--to make a wanted article, and to put it where those who
want it can buy. But this was not Arthur Ranger's problem, nor is it the
problem of most business men in our time. Between maker and customer,
nowadays, lie the brigands who control the railways--that is, the
highways; and they with equal facility use or defy the law, according to
their needs. When Arthur went a-buying grain or stave timber, he and
those with whom he was trading had to placate the brigands before they
could trade; when he went a-selling flour, he had to fight his way to the
markets through the brigands. It was the battle which causes more than
ninety out of every hundred in independent business to fail--and of the
remaining ten, how many succeed only because they either escaped the
notice of the brigands or compromised with them?

"I wish you luck," said Jenkins, when, at the end of two weeks of his
tutelage, Arthur told him he would try it alone.

Arthur laughed. "No, you don't, Jenkins," replied he, with good-humored
bluntness. "But I'm going to have it, all the same."

Discriminating prices and freight rates against his grain, discriminating
freight rates against his flour; the courts either powerless to aid him
or under the rule of bandits; and, on the top of all, a strike within two
weeks after Jenkins left--such was the situation. Arthur thought it
hopeless; but he did not lose courage nor his front of serenity, even
when alone with Madelene. Each was careful not to tempt the malice of
fate by concealments; each was careful also not to annoy the other with
unnecessary disagreeable recitals. If he could have seen where good
advice could possibly help him, he would have laid all his troubles
before her; but it seemed to him that to ask her