not sure that he isn't a
philosopher!"

Thatcher nodded, as though this were a corroboration of his own
surmises.

"He has a lot of ideas that are what they call advanced, but it's not
for me to say that he isn't right about them. He talks nonsense some of
the time, but occasionally he knocks me down with a big idea--or his way
of putting a big idea. He doesn't understand a good deal that he sees;
and yet he sometimes says something perfectly staggering."

"He does; by George, he does! Damn it, I took him to see a glassworks
the other day; thought it would appeal to his sense of what you call the
picturesque; but, Lord bless me, he asked how much the blowers were paid
and wanted me to raise their pay on the spot. That was one on me, all
right; I'd thought of giving him the works to play with, but I didn't
have the nerve to offer it to him after that. 'Fraid he'd either turn it
down or take it and bust me."

Thatcher had referred to this incident with unmistakable pride; he was
evidently amused rather than chagrined by his son's scorn of the gift of
a profitable industry. "I offered him money to start a carpenter shop or
furniture factory or anything he wanted to tackle, but he wouldn't have
it. Said he wanted to work in somebody else's shop to get the
discipline. Discipline? That boy never had any discipline in his life!
I've kept my nose to the grindstone ever since I was knee-high to a toad
just so that boy wouldn't have to worry about his daily bread, and now,
damn it all, he runs a carpenter shop on the top floor of a house that
stands me, lot, furniture, and all, nearly a hundred thousand dollars! I
can't talk to everybody about this; my wife and daughters don't want any
discipline; don't like the United States or anything in it except
exchange on London; and here I am with a boy who wears overalls and
tries to callous his hands to look like a laboring man. If you can
figure that out, it's a damn sight more than I can do! It's one on Ed
Thatcher, that's all!"

"If I try to answer you, please don't think I pretend to any unusual
knowledge of human nature; but what I see in the boy is a kind of poetic
attitude toward America--our politics, the whole scheme; and it's a
poetic strain in him that accounts for this feeling about labor. And he
has a feeling for justice and mercy; he's strong for the underdog." "I
suppose," said Thatcher dryly, "that if he'd been an underdog the way I
was he'd be more tickled at a ch