with his
grievance. Fanny had always stimulated him, reassured him, given him the
mental readjustment that he needed.

He strode into her office one morning in late September. Ordinarily he
sent for her. He stood by her desk now, a sheaf of papers in his hand,
palpably stage props, and lifted significant eyebrows in the direction
of the stenographer busy at her typewriter in the corner.

"You may leave that, Miss Mahin," Fanny said. Miss Mahin, a
comprehending young woman, left it, and the room as well. Fenger sat
down. He was under great excitement, though he was quite controlled.
Fanny, knowing him, waited quietly. His eyes held hers.

"It's come," Fenger began. "You know that for the last year Haynes has
been milling around with a herd of sociologists, philanthropists, and
students of economics. He had some scheme in the back of his head, but I
thought it was just another of his impractical ideas. It appears that
it wasn't. Between the lot of them they've evolved a savings and
profit-sharing plan that's founded on a kind of practical universal
brotherhood dream. Haynes's millions are bothering him. If they actually
put this thing through I'll get out. It'll mean that everything I've
built up will be torn down. It will mean that any six-dollar-a-week
girl----"

"As I understand it," interrupted Fanny, "it will mean that there will
be no more six-dollar-a-week girls."

"That's it. And let me tell you, once you get the ignorant, unskilled
type to believing they're actually capable of earning decent money,
actually worth something, they're worse than useless. They're
dangerous."

"You don't believe that."

"I do."

"But it's a theory that belongs to the Dark Ages. We've disproved it.
We've got beyond that."

"Yes. So was war. We'd got beyond it. But it's here. I tell you, there
are only two classes: the governing and the governed. That has always
been true. It always will be. Let the Socialists rave. It has never got
them anywhere. I know. I come from the mucker class myself. I know what
they stand for. Boost them, and they'll turn on you. If there's anything
in any of them, he'll pull himself up by his own bootstraps."

"They're not all potential Fengers."

"Then let 'em stay what they are."

Fanny's pencil was tracing and retracing a tortured and meaningless
figure on the paper before her. "Tell me, do you remember a girl named
Sarah Sapinsky?"

"Never heard of her."

"That's fitting. Sarah Sapinsk