expressions of the others were simply
small and mean and frost-nipped. And that is the rule--the second
generation of a plutocrat inherits, with his money, the meanness that
enabled him to hoard it, but not the greatness that enabled him to
make it.

So absorbed was I in the study of the influence of his terrible
master-character upon those closest to it, that I started when he
said: "Let us pray." I followed the example of the others, and knelt.
The audible prayer was offered up by his oldest daughter, Mrs.
Wheeler, a widow. Roebuck punctuated each paragraph in her series of
petitions with a loudly whispered amen. When she prayed for "the
stranger whom Thou hast led seemingly by chance into our little
circle," he whispered the amen more fervently and repeated it. And
well he might, the old robber and assassin by proxy! The prayer ended
and us on our feet, the servants withdrew, then all the family except
Roebuck. That is, they closed the doors between the two rooms and left
him and me alone in the front parlor.

"I shall not detain you long, Mr. Roebuck," said I. "A report reached
me this evening that sent me to you at once."

"If possible, Matthew," said he, and he could not hide his uneasiness,
"put off business until to-morrow. My mind--yours, too, I trust--is
not in the frame for that kind of thoughts now."

"Is the Coal reorganization to be announced the first of July?" I
demanded. It has always been, and always shall be, my method to fight
in the open. This, not from principle, but from expediency. Some men
fight best in the brush; I don't. So I always begin battle by shelling
the woods.

"No," he said, amazing me by his instant frankness. "The announcement
has been postponed."

Why did he not lie to me? Why did he not put me off the scent, as he
might easily have done, with some shrewd evasion? I suspect I owe it
to my luck in catching him at family prayers. For I know that the
general impression of him is erroneous; he is not merely a hypocrite
before the world, but also a hypocrite before himself. A more
profoundly, piously conscientious man never lived. Never was there a
truer epitaph than the one implied in the sentence carved over his
niche in the magnificent Roebuck mausoleum he built: "Fear naught but
the Lord."

"When will the reorganization be announced?" I asked.

"I cannot say," he answered. "Some difficulties--chiefly labor
difficulties--have arisen. Until they are settled, nothing can be