hing
as your own country, and that if you've got advantages you've also got
responsibilities?" said Crocker, senior, shaking his head. "You want
money like all the rest. What good do you want to do in return? What
usefulness do you accomplish in the scheme of things here? You talk of
opportunity--you don't know what a real opportunity and a privilege is.
Now let me say my say."

Richardson came sliding into the room at this moment and he paused to
deny the card, with a curt order against further interruptions. When he
resumed it was on a quieter note, with a touch of sadness.

"The trouble is, our points of view are too far apart for us to come
together at present. You want something that isn't going to satisfy you
and I know isn't going to satisfy you. But I can't make you see it,
there's the pity of it. You've got to get your hard knocks yourself.
You've got real ambition in you. Now let me tell you something about the
mills and you think it over. There's some bigger things in this world
than you think, and the biggest is to create something, something useful
to the community; to make a monument of it and to pass it down for your
son to carry on--family pride. You think there's only drudgery in it.
Did you ever think there were thousands and thousands of people
depending on how you run your business? Do you realize that every great
business to-day means the protection of those thousands; that you've got
to study out how to protect them at every point in order to make them
efficient; that there's nothing unimportant? You've got to watch over
their health and their happiness, see that they get amusement,
relaxation; that they're encouraged to buy homes and taught to save
money. You've got to see that they get education to keep them out of the
hands of ignorant agitators. You've got to make them self-respecting and
able intelligently to understand your own business, so that they'll
perceive they're getting their just share. Add to that the other side,
the competition, the watching of every new invention, the calculating to
the last cent, the study of local and foreign conditions of supply and
demand, the habits and tastes of different communities. Add also the
biggest thing that you've got, a mixed population, that's got to be
turned into intelligent, useful American citizens, and you've got as big
an opportunity and responsibility as you can place before any young
fellow I know. What do you say?"

Bojo had nothing to