of shock, eh?

ELLIE. It would have been, this morning. Now! you can't think how little
it matters. But it's quite interesting. Only, you must explain it to me.
I don't understand it. [Propping her elbows on the drawingboard and her
chin on her hands, she composes herself to listen with a combination of
conscious curiosity with unconscious contempt which provokes him to more
and more unpleasantness, and an attempt at patronage of her ignorance].

MANGAN. Of course you don't understand: what do you know about business?
You just listen and learn. Your father's business was a new business;
and I don't start new businesses: I let other fellows start them. They
put all their money and their friends' money into starting them. They
wear out their souls and bodies trying to make a success of them.
They're what you call enthusiasts. But the first dead lift of the thing
is too much for them; and they haven't enough financial experience. In
a year or so they have either to let the whole show go bust, or sell out
to a new lot of fellows for a few deferred ordinary shares: that is, if
they're lucky enough to get anything at all. As likely as not the very
same thing happens to the new lot. They put in more money and a couple
of years' more work; and then perhaps they have to sell out to a third
lot. If it's really a big thing the third lot will have to sell out too,
and leave their work and their money behind them. And that's where the
real business man comes in: where I come in. But I'm cleverer than some:
I don't mind dropping a little money to start the process. I took your
father's measure. I saw that he had a sound idea, and that he would work
himself silly for it if he got the chance. I saw that he was a child
in business, and was dead certain to outrun his expenses and be in too
great a hurry to wait for his market. I knew that the surest way to
ruin a man who doesn't know how to handle money is to give him some. I
explained my idea to some friends in the city, and they found the money;
for I take no risks in ideas, even when they're my own. Your father and
the friends that ventured their money with him were no more to me than
a heap of squeezed lemons. You've been wasting your gratitude: my kind
heart is all rot. I'm sick of it. When I see your father beaming at
me with his moist, grateful eyes, regularly wallowing in gratitude, I
sometimes feel I must tell him the truth or burst. What stops me is that
I know he wouldn't beli