e Bean of uninspired days would never have braved
public scrutiny. Such were the immediate and actual fruits of Ram-tah's
influence.

There were other effects, perhaps more subtle. Performing his accustomed
work for Breede that day, he began to study his employer from the
kingly, or Ram-tah, point of view. He conceived that Breede in the time
of Ram-tah would have been a steward, a keeper of the royal granaries, a
dependable accountant; a good enough man in his lowly station, but one
who could never rise. His laxness in the manner of dress was seen to be
ingrained, an incurable defect of soul. In the time of Ram-tah he had
doubtless worn the Egyptian equivalent for detached cuffs, and he would
be doing the like for a thousand incarnations to come. All too plainly
Breede's Karmic future promised little of interest. His degree of ascent
in the human scale was hardly perceptible.

Bean was pleased at this thought. It left him in a fine glow of
superiority and sharpened his relish for the mad jest of their present
attitudes--a jest demanding that he seem to be Breede's subordinate.

Naturally, this was a situation that would not long endure. It was too
preposterous. Money came not only to kings but to the kingly. He
troubled as little about details as would have any other king. Were
there not steel kings, and iron kings, railway kings, oil kings--money
kings? He thought it was not unlikely that he would first engage the
world's notice as an express king. He had received those fifty shares of
stock from Aunt Clara and regarded them as a presage of his coming
directorship. But he took no pride in this thought. Baseball was to be
his life work. He would own one major-league team, at least; perhaps
three or four. He would be known as the baseball king, and the world
would forget his petty triumphs as a director of express.

He deemed it significant that the present directors of that same Federal
Express Company one day held a meeting in Breede's office. It showed, he
thought, how life "worked around." The thing was coming to his very
door. With considerable interest he studied the directors as they came
and went. Most of them, like Breede, were men whose wealth the daily
press had a habit of estimating in rotund millions. He regarded them
knowingly, thinking he could tell them something that might surprise
them. But they passed him, all unheeding, moneyed-looking men of good
round girth, who seemed to have found the dollar-g