chable morality.

At the end of the block, while the long pointed shadows of their feet
kept even pace on the stone crossing, Cyrus answered abruptly: "Put him
anywhere out of my sight. I can't bear the look of him."

"How would you like to give him something to do on the road? Put him
under Borrows, for instance, and let him learn a bit about freight?"

"Well, I don't care. Only don't let me see him--he turns my stomach."

"Then as long as we've got to support him, I'll tell him he may try his
hand at the job of assistant freight agent, if he wants to earn his
keep."

"He'll never do that--just as well put him down under 'waste,' and have
done with him," replied Cyrus, chuckling.

A little girl, rolling a hoop, tripped and fell at his feet, and he
nodded at her kindly, for he had a strong physical liking for children,
though he had never stopped to think about them in a human or personal
way. He had, indeed, never stopped to think about anything except the
absorbing problem of how to make something out of nothing. Everything
else, even his marriage, had made merely a superficial impression upon
him. What people called his "luck" was only the relentless pursuit of an
idea; and in this pursuit all other sides of his nature had been sapped
of energy. From the days when he had humbly accepted small commissions
from the firm of Machlin & Company, to the last few years, when he had
come to be regarded almost superstitiously as the saviour of sinking
properties, he had moved quietly, cautiously, and unswervingly in one
direction. The blighting panic of ten years before had hardly touched
him, so softly had he ventured, and so easy was it for him to return to
his little deals and his diet of crumbs. They were bad times, those
years, alike for rich and poor, for Northerner and Southerner; but in
the midst of crashing firms and noiseless factories, he had cut down his
household expenses to a pittance and had gone on as secretively as
ever--waiting, watching, hoping, until the worst was over and Machlin &
Company had found their man. Then, a little later, with the invasion of
the cigarette, there went up the new Treadwell factory which the subtle
minded still attributed to the genius of Cyrus. Even before George and
Henry had sailed for Australia, the success of the house in Dinwiddie
was assured. There was hardly a drug store in America in those days that
did not offer as its favourite James's crowning triumph, the Magnolia