dealing
with things after they are made, that is to say in business methods.
Every such improvement increases the wealth of the world, tends to make
everybody richer. This invention which we have got hold of is a small
thing. It's only going to do a little, a very little to make the world
richer, but it is going to do something for it is going to lessen the
labour required for certain results and therefore is going to increase
men's power, a little, just a little. That is why we must make the
thing available, if we can; in order to add to the general wealth, and
therefore to our own wealth. Those are business principles."

Ascher paused. I had nothing to say for a moment. Business principles as
he explained them were not the business principles I was accustomed to,
certainly not the business principles on which Gorman acted. After a
minute's silence Ascher went on.

"The mistake which is most often made in business," he said, "is to
suppose that we grow rich by taking riches from other men, or that
nations prosper by depriving other nations of prosperity. That would be
true if riches consisted of money, and if there were just so much money
and no more in the world. Then business and finance would be a scramble,
in which the roughest and strongest scrambler would get most. But that
is not so."

"Isn't it?" I said. "I should have thought that business just is a
scramble."

"No," said Ascher, "it is not. Nations grow rich, that is to say, get
comfort, ease, and even luxury, only when other nations are growing rich
too, only because other nations are growing rich."

"The way to grow rich," I said, "is to make other people rich. Is that
it? It sounds rather like one of the--what do you call them?--counsels
of perfection in the Gospel."

"Perhaps it is a religious truth too," said Ascher. "I don't know. I
have never studied religion. Some day I think I shall. There must be a
great deal that is very interesting in the New Testament."

"Confound you, Ascher! Is there anything in heaven or earth that you
don't look at from the outside, as if you were some kind of superior
epicurean god?"

"I beg your pardon. I ought not to have spoken in that way. You are, no
doubt, a Christian."

"Of course I am--in--in a general way."

"I have often thought," said Ascher slowly, "that I should like to be.
But from the little I know of that religion----"

"I expect you know as much as I do," I said.

"It must be," said Ascher, "