an to see these strangely human machines and these mechanical
human beings in a larger perspective, in a constant warfare, each
ceaselessly struggling with the other, each unconsciously being
fashioned in the likeness of his enemy.

"When we've got the human element down to the lowest terms, then we'll
fight machines with machinery, I suppose," said Garnett.

"Makes you sort of wonder what'll be done fifty years from now," said
Bojo.

"Doesn't it?" said Garnett. "I wouldn't dare tell you what the Governor
talks about. You'd think he's plum crazy."

"By George, I feel like starting now."

"Same way I did," said Garnett, nodding. "I suppose what you'll want
will be to follow the whole process from the beginning. It gives you a
general idea. I say, that's a great machine your father's just
installed."

He began to expatiate enthusiastically on an article he had read in a
technical paper, assuming full knowledge on Bojo's part, who listened in
wonder, already beginning to feel, beyond the horizon of these animated
iron shapes, the mysterious realms of human invention he had so long
misunderstood.

The next morning, in overalls and flannels, he took his place in the
moving throngs and found his own time-card, a numbered part of a great
industrial battalion. He was apprenticed to Mike Monahan, a grizzled,
good-humored veteran, whose early attitude of suspicion disappeared with
Bojo's plunge into grime and grease. He was himself conscious of a
strange bashfulness which he had never experienced in his contact with
Wall Street men. It seemed to him that these earnest, life-giving hordes
of labor must look down on him as a useless, unimportant specimen. When
he came to take his place in the early morning, sorting out his
time-card, he was conscious of their glances and always felt awkward as
he passed from room to room. Gradually, being essentially simple and
manly in his instincts, he won his way into the friendly comprehension
of his associates, living on their terms, seeking their company, talking
their talk, with a dawning avid curiosity in their points of view, their
needs, and their opinions of his own class.

Garnett had not exaggerated when he had said that the work was not
playing football. There were days at first when the constant mental
application and the mechanical iteration amid the dinning shocks in the
air left him completely fagged in mind and body. When he returned home
it was with no thought of theat