nothing. And he had his house fixed up without consulting me.
He must be queer, like his father, your great uncle, Henry Pindar.

GEORGE. Tell me about Dr. Jonathan. A scientist,--isn't he? Suddenly
decided to come back to live in the old homestead.

ASHER. On account of his health. He was delicate as a boy. He must have
been about eight or nine years old when Uncle Henry left Foxon Falls for
the west,--that was before you were born. Uncle Henry died somewhere in
Iowa. He and my father never got along. Uncle Henry had as much as
your grandfather to begin with, and let it slip through his fingers. He
managed to send Jonathan to a medical school, and it seems that he's had
some sort of a position at Johns Hopkins's--research work. I don't know
what he's got to live on.

GEORGE. Uncle Henry must have been a philanthropist.

ASHER. It's all very well to be a philanthropist when you make more than
you give away. Otherwise you're a sentimentalist.

GEORGE. Or a Christian.

ASHER. We can't take Christianity too literally.

GEORGE (smiling). That's its great advantage, as a religion.

ASHER. George, I don't like to say anything just as you're going
to fight for your country, my boy, but your attitude of religious
skepticism has troubled me, as well as your habit of intimacy with the
shop hands. I confess to you that I've been a little afraid at times
that you'd take after Jonathan's father. He never went to church, he
forgot that he owed something to his position as a Pindar. He used to
have that house of his overrun with all sorts of people, and the yard
full of dirty children eating his fruit and picking his flowers. There's
such a thing as being too democratic. I hope I'm as good an American as
anybody, I believe that any man with brains, who has thrift, ought to
rise--but wait until they do rise. You're going to command men, and when
you come back here into the business again you'll be in a position of
authority. Remember what I say, if you give these working people an
inch, they'll take all you have.

GEORGE (laying his hand on ASHER's shoulder). Something is worrying you,
dad. We've always been pretty good pals, haven't we?

ASHER. Yes, ever since you were a little shaver. Well, George, I didn't
want to bother you with it--today. It seems there's trouble in the
shops,--in our shops, of all places,--it's been going on for some time,
grumbling, dissatisfaction, and they're getting higher wages than ever
before--r