continued, lowering his eyes again,
to follow the tracings of his finger. "I--I believe the shop might have
done for me this time if I hadn't--if something hadn't helped me to--oh,
not only to bear it, but to be happy in it. Well, I AM happy in it.
I want to go on just as I am. And of all things on earth that I don't
want, I don't want to live a business life--I don't want to be drawn
into it. I don't think it IS living--and now I AM living. I have the
healthful toil--and I can think. In business as important as yours I
couldn't think anything but business. I don't--I don't think making
money is worth while."

"Go on," said Sheridan, curtly, as Bibbs paused timidly.

"It hasn't seemed to get anywhere, that I can see," said Bibbs. "You
think this city is rich and powerful--but what's the use of its being
rich and powerful? They don't teach the children any more in the schools
because the city is rich and powerful. They teach them more than they
used to because some people--not rich and powerful people--have thought
the thoughts to teach the children. And yet when you've been reading
the paper I've heard you objecting to the children being taught anything
except what would help them to make money. You said it was wasting the
taxes. You want them taught to make a living, but not to live. When I
was a little boy this wasn't an ugly town; now it's hideous. What's the
use of being big just to be hideous? I mean I don't think all this has
meant really going ahead--it's just been getting bigger and dirtier and
noisier. Wasn't the whole country happier and in many ways wiser when it
was smaller and cleaner and quieter and kinder? I know you think I'm an
utter fool, father, but, after all, though, aren't business and politics
just the housekeeping part of life? And wouldn't you despise a woman
that not only made her housekeeping her ambition, but did it so noisily
and dirtily that the whole neighborhood was in a continual turmoil over
it? And suppose she talked and thought about her housekeeping all
the time, and was always having additions built to her house when she
couldn't keep clean what she already had; and suppose, with it all, she
made the house altogether unpeaceful and unlivable--"

"Just one minute!" Sheridan interrupted, adding, with terrible courtesy,
"If you will permit me? Have you ever been right about anything?"

"I don't quite--"

"I ask the simple question: Have you ever been right about anything
whatever