Gossamer

o. I was a little afraid of Stutz, who seemed to me a severe man, very little tolerant of human folly. Still I would have faced Stutz without shrinking, especially in

omething worse than insolence if I insisted on my advice being taken. Yet it was

rehand to the approval of Gorman's policy and therefore had no right to intervene. What claim had I to insist on Ascher's doing this or that? I should not feel myself justified in calling on an ar

had pr

ait some time before I saw him. I sat in the large anteroom through which I had passed when I first visited the off

ill depths of oceans, over unlighted tracts of ooze on the sea-bottom. In London the words were read and men set free pent up, dammed streams of money. In Hongkong the words were read and some steamer went out, laden, from her harbour. Gold was poured into the hands of tea-planters in Ceylon. Scanty wages in strange coins, dribbled out to factory workers in Russian cotton mills. Gangs of navvies went to work laying railway lines across the veldt in Bechuanaland. There was no end to the energy

aic equations. These men all worked-the apologue of the quadratic equation held my mind-moving their symbols here and there, extracting roots, dissolving close-knit phrases into factors, cancelling, simplifying, but always dealing with symbols meaningless, unreal in themselves. Behind them was Ascher, Ascher and I suppose Stutz, who expressed rea

ss methods have produced, a man of resource and quick decision, but a man, so I guessed, who dealt with things, and money only as the price of things, the reward of

d me to leave my place and

ghtway into my business. I began by pret

ng travelling companions again? I

Ascher. "I've a great

exican a

among o

s to be making rather a m

in Mexican companies, every one who had invested hopefully a little while before in Mexican railways, every o

e minds of the men who are making the muddle is a fine one

it ca

in Washington proceeds is a noble one. Respect for constitutional order shoul

, his well-worn cliches about money kings and poison spiders. Ascher agreed with him. Ascher, apparently, had some approval f

id, "of going home by

eable. I was there in 1903 and r

come too. It would be much pleas

nd of you to

and from an hotel into a steamer. I shall be forced to buy a Baedeker, if there is a Baedeker for those r

up the telep

uction to our correspondents wherever you go. They are ba

moned

an idea of your

ry vague. I haven't settled anything.

paper towards him

t is very interesting and of course of immense imp

making lists of place names and ad

d the Amazon, a huge river of course, but unless you are int

rything," I said, "eve

south again. The South Amer

s speaking. Ascher handed h

laces," he said, "and have letters of introd

d to me that he was taking a great deal of trouble for which

laces you visit. They will put you in the way of finding out the trend of political feeling. It is their business to know these things, and in visiting new countries-new in the

have preferred Italy to Brazil if

or a scholar would be a better

er more than the past, perhaps. But are you tied at all by

s your introductions last, gathering knowledge which

r of credit," said Ascher. "It is never wise to

siness to. There is no awkwardness about the subject of toothache in a dentist's parlour. He expects to be talked to about teeth. It ought to have been an equally simple thing to speak to Ascher about the future of a company i

just had a visit from a man on bu

sed me in the anteroom be

ot an accredited agent, you will understand. He did not profess to rep

smiled

f anything he said turned out to be inconvenient. In politics men of that sort are ve

ell you how the matter stands. Mildmay sent us his report and it was entirely favourable to the new machine. I think the invention is likely to turn out a

ch I came to talk to you about to-day. I m

so. If I am right about the man who visited me this morning we have very good evidence that our opinion is sou

of the exist

o say, if I am righ

ould any one know about

ugged his

't have been such a fool as t

nything worth knowing always is known. The world of business is

point is that this man d

t he said was that he had a client-he posed as some kind of

happen once it was understood that

understand, I am sure, that we

on," I said, "that Gorm

ch will put money into the pocket of the inventor and into our pockets. If it were valuable only in that way Gorman would be quite right, and our wisest course would be to take what we could get with the least amount of risk and trouble, in other words to accept the best price which we could induce the b

that way when Gorman first mentioned it to me. I said th

er n

y that's altruism, not business. Business men don't risk their money with t

or can be done at present, though there is more altruism

to charity," I said,

need not go into that. I believe that busines

ism apart, why not take what we can get out of Tim Gorman's

. Every such improvement increases the wealth of the world, tends to make everybody richer. This invention which we have got hold of is a small thing. It's only going to do a little, a very little to make the world richer, but it is going to do something for it is going to le

ned them were not the business principles I was accustomed to, certainly not the b

rosper by depriving other nations of prosperity. That would be true if riches consisted of money, and if there were just so much money and no mo

ould have thought that bu

, get comfort, ease, and even luxury, only when other nations ar

rich. Is that it? It sounds rather like one of the-what

I have never studied religion. Some day I think I shall. There mu

or earth that you don't look at from the outside, a

t to have spoken in that way.

am-in-in a

wly, "that I should like to be. But fro

know as much a

Ascher, "very hard

y business of mine to work out harmonies between Christian ethics and the principles of modern banking. I detest puzzles of all kinds. It is far better, at all events far more comfortable, to take life as one finds it, a straightforward, co

ood o

me, the si

uld take who

should ke

oes not do anything shady. I

him exactly how hard it is to be a Christian. I made a

vention will get

will get its chance. It will be ma

l be very please

emember now. Young Gorman has been sitting to

nts of that difficult business, labour, you know, and pain. She regards you as the doctor i

aid that he was going to say something about the paradoxi

c soul to appreciate the feelings of people who give birth to cash registers. But the idea is plain enough. Tim Gorman will

, that ought to be an important consideration. It's the artist's

ss and religion. Now that those two have lain down together like a lion and a lamb-I don't quite see how they do it, bu

between art and business. He knows a good deal about both of th