f a man goes bankrupt and won't face
the world and work back instead of blowing his brains out--his fault.

"You think of the individual--men, friends, death. They move you,
they're closer to you than the big perspective. They don't count, no one
counts. If a man kills himself, he dies quicker than he would and is not
worth living, that's all. Sounds cold-blooded to you. Yes. But we're
dealing in movements, armies! Poverty, sorrow, disaster, death, they are
life--you can't get away from them. A great bridge is more important
than the lives of the men who build it, a great railroad is necessary,
not the question whether a few thousand people lose their fortunes, in
the operation which makes a great amalgamation possible. That's my point
of view. It's not yours. You're set on what you've made up your mind to
do. Your emotions have got you. Ten years from now you'll regret it."

"I hope not," said Bojo simply.

"What are you going to do? Well, come in here as my private secretary,"
said Drake, placing his hand on the young man's shoulder, and adding,
with that burst of human understanding which gave him a magnetic power
over men: "Tom, you're a ---- fool to do what you're doing, but, by
heaven, I love you for it!"

"Thank you," said Bojo, controlling his voice with difficulty.

"Will you come here?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Frankly, I want to do something by myself," said Bojo stubbornly. "I
don't want some one to take me by the collar and jack me up into
success."

"Think it over!"

"No, I'll stick to that. I want to get into a rational life. To live the
way I've been living is torture."

Drake hesitated, as though loathe to let him go, seeking some way out.

"Won't you let me make good your losses--at least that?"

"Not after the hole I got into, no."

"Damn it, Tom, won't you let me do something to help out?"

"No, not a thing." He went up and shook hands. "You don't know what it
means to be able to look you in the eyes again, sir. That's everything!"

"And Doris?" said Drake slowly, beaten at every point.

"Doris I am going to see now," he said.

He went to the door hastily to avoid sentimentalities, and on the other
side of the curtain, where she had been listening, he found Doris,
wide-eyed and thrilled, her finger on her lips.

CHAPTER XIX

A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK

"What, you were there! You heard!" he said, astounded.

She nodded her head, incapable of speech, her finger still on her