The Rules of the Game

, both from his father and his father's associates. The firm name meant to him big things in the past history of Michigan's industries, and big things in the vag

pewriter, several chairs, and a large roll-top desk. At the latter a man sprawled, reading a newspaper. Bob looked about for a further door closed on an inner private office, where the weighty business must be transacted. There

dly over his paper. Bob felt himself the object of an instant

id the man

for Mr. Fox,"

am

f the trained athlete. Without comment he handed his card of introduction to the

ur father, you'll succeed. If you're not as good a man as your father, you may get on-well enough. But y

okkeepers appeare

x told him. "You knew his fa

examined Bob

here," went on Fox. "H

few moments he thrust the crumpled sheet into a huge waste basket and turned

As nothing further occurred for some time, he removed his overcoat, and gazed about him with interest on the framed photographs of logging scenes and camps that covere

a typewriter?

le," sa

is, with a car

e found it to be a list, including hundreds

R., 26 W S.W.

W. 1/4 of

W. 1/4 of

W. 1/4 of

E. 1/4 of

alphabet would shift. And so on, column after column. Bob had not the remotest notion of what i

erify this

Bob in

ver, compare it," snap

bewilderment of so many similar figures, he managed to discover that he had omitted three and miscopied two. He corrected these

, fully as exhilarating as the other. When h

these?"

ons," snap

land; that each item of the many hundreds meant a separate tract. Thus

rter of section number four, township numbe

he misplacement on the map of enough for a good-sized farm. Nevertheless, as day succeeded day, and the lists had no end, the mistakes became more difficult to avoid. The S, W,

graphs of logging crews, winter scenes in the forest, record loads of logs; and to speculate again on the maps, deer heads, and hunting trophies. At first they had appeal

of his swinging chair, light a cigar, and enter into desultory conversation. To Bob a great deal of time seem

tax lists he had to copy over every description a second

1/4, T. 4 N.R.,

, N. 16

et; Norway pine, 16,000 feet; hemlock, 5,000 feet," and tha

tatistics on how Camp 14 fed its men for 32 cents

they sent him out to do an errand, or let him copy a wo

ce of W P-was in California, belonged to his own father, and would one day be his. For just at thi

ened. They filed their interminable statistics, and consulted their interminable books, and marked squares off their interminable maps, and droned along their monotonous, unimportant life in the same manner day after day. Bob was used to out-of-doors, used to exercise, used to the animation of free human intercourse.

s life. He tried conscientiously to do hi

ut even he was a being apart, alien, one of the strangely accurate machines for the putting down and docketing of these innumerable and unimportant figures. He would have liked to know and understand Bob, just as the latter would have liked to know and understand him, but they were separated by a wide

and boy. Discovering it to be sleeting, he returned for his overcoat. H

curacy. He will never do

ked at him