Oil! quotes

sometimes you would peer around the side of the shield, and let the torrent hit your forehead, and toss your hair about. But for the most part you sat silent and dignified—because that was Dad’s way, and

Dad’s way constituted the ethics of motoring.

Dad wore an overcoat, tan in color, soft and woolly in texture, opulent in cut, double-breasted, with big collar and big lapels and big flaps over the pockets—every place where a tailor could express munificence.

Out of the clouds overhead a great bird came sailing; his wings collapsed as if he had been shot, and he dived into the abyss. “Was that an eagle?” asked the boy.

“Buzzard,” answered Dad, who had no romance in him.

Higher and higher they climbed, the engine purring softly, one unvarying note. Underneath the windshield were dials and gauges in complicated array: a speedometer with a little red line showing exactly how fast you were going;

and the boy, who was always on the ground the instant the car stopped, opened the rear compartment and got out the little bag for the chains to go in. Also he got out the grease-gun, and unwrapped that.

“Grease is cheaper than steel,” Dad would say.

He had many such maxims, a whole modern Book of Proverbs which the boy learned by heart. It was not that Dad was anxious to save the money; nor was it that he had grease to sell and not steel;

There were endless puns on the word inn—“Dew Drop Inn” and “Happen Inn,” “Welcome Inn” and “Hurry Inn.” When you went into these places you would find the spirit of jollity rampaging on the walls: “In God we Trust, All Others Cash.”

“Don’t complain about our coffee; some day you may be old and weak yourself.”

“We have an arrangement with our bank; the bank does not sell soup, and we do not cash checks.”

they had gone out on the highway with pots of varicolored paint, and had decorated rocks and railway culverts with inscriptions: “Prepare to meet thy God.” Then would come a traffic sign: “Railroad crossing. Stop. Look. Listen.”

The railroad company wanted you to meet your God through some other agency, Dad explained, because there would be damage suits for taking religious faith too seriously.

“Jesus waits,” a boulder would proclaim; and then would come, “Chicken Dinner, $1.” There were always funny signs about things to eat—apparently all the world loved a meal, and became jolly at the thought.

There were endless puns on the word inn—“Dew Drop Inn” and “Happen Inn,” “Welcome Inn” and “Hurry Inn.” When you went into these places you would find the spirit of jollity rampaging on the walls:

“In God we Trust, All Others Cash.”

“Don’t complain about our coffee; some day you may be old and weak yourself.” “We have an arrangement with our bank; the bank does not sell soup, and we do not cash checks.”

consisting of hot dog sandwiches, a slice of apple pie, and a cup of coffee. At that time the fields had been cleared of cabbages, and graded, and the lots had blossomed with little signs: “Sold.”

This was supposed to refer to the lot, but in time it came to refer to the purchaser.

The company had undertaken to put in curbs and sidewalks, water and gas and sewers; but somebody made off with the money, and the enterprise went into bankruptcy, and presently new signs began to appear: “For Sale, by Owner,” or “Bargain:

This document had been duly recorded in the county archives; and now day by day they were realizing what they had done to themselves.

They had agreed to agree; and from that time on, they had never been able to agree to anything!

They met at seven-thirty every evening, and wrangled until midnight or later; they went home exhausted, and could not sleep;

They held minority meetings, and formed factional groups, and made pledges which they broke, more or less secretly, before the sun had set.

Their frail human nature was subjected to a strain greater than it was made for; the fires of greed had been lighted in their hearts, and fanned to a white heat that melted every principle and every law.

The “lease-hounds” were on their trail, besieging their homes, ringing the telephone, following them in automobiles. But each new proposition, instead of satisfaction, brought worry, suspicion and hate. Whoever proposed it, must be trying to cheat the rest;

“He says he’s all right and not to worry. The poor child, he sent me two-bits in stamps, to pay for that food he took! He says he earned the money—bless him!” Tears ran down the lady’s ample cheeks; and

Bunny learned the difficult lesson that human nature is a complicated thing, so that the same fat lady can be at one moment a hyena of greed, and at the next a mater dolorosa.

These two sat down on a rabbit-hutch, and had a good talk. Bunny told Mrs. Groarty just how it had happened, and it was a relief to get it off his conscience. Mrs.

Mrs. Groarty and her husband were thinking of putting their bonus money, when they got it, into some units of “Eureka Pete”—the Eureka Petroleum Company—which was promising a quick drilling on the north slope. And Bunny found himself suddenly recollecting Dad’s warning:

“Look out for people who mistake you for an oil well, and try to put you on the pump!”

Mr. Benzinger had sent two truck-loads of Mexicans and fixed up the roads; and Mr. Ascott had kept his promise and delivered the lumber for the derrick;

All his life that he could remember, home had been a place which you rented, or bought with the idea of holding it as a real estate speculation.

As the Indians in the Hudson Bay country kill a moose in the wintertime, and move to the moose, so Dad started an oil well, and moved to the well.

First came Mr. Eaton, the tutor; he was used to getting a telephone call, informing him where the carcase of the moose was to be found. He would pack his two suitcases and his steamer-trunk, and take the train or the motorbus to his pupil.

he might pick up acquaintance with every sort of riffraff if he chose, but certainly he need not make his sister shake hands with them!

Bunny could not understand⁠—he never did succeed in understanding, all his life long, how people could fail to be interested in other people.

He told Bertie about Paul, and what a wonderful fellow he was, but Bertie said just what Dad had said, that Paul was “crazy.”

But independence had its price, for then you would have to provide enough oil to keep the refinery going, and you would want a chain of filling-stations to get rid of your products.

It was a hard game for the little fellow; and no matter how big you got, there was always somebody bigger!

But Dad had no kick just now; everything was a-comin’ his way a-whoopin’. Right in the midst of his other triumphs it had occurred to him to take one of his old Antelope wells and go a little lower, and see what he found;

“But when it’s not their fault, Dad?”

“It would take a lot of bookkeeping to figger jist whose fault it is; and the banks don’t keep books that way.”

Then seeing the protest in Bunny’s face, “You’ll find, son there’s a lot o’ harsh things in the world, that ain’t in your power to change. You’ll jist have to make up your mind to that, sooner or later.”

… came, offering to clean the birds for them, and they were glad to let him, and gave him half the birds for the family to eat—it was pitiful to see the light in the eyes of the poor, half-starved youth when he heard this news.

It isn’t easy to live altogether in the spirit while you are not fully grown!

Eli took the birds to the house, where there was a chopping-block and pails of water handy; and meantime Bunny stretched out to rest, with his feet up in front. Suddenly he sat up with an exclamation. “Dad! Look at that!”

Bunny told how he had been at Mrs. Groarty’s—saying nothing about oil, of course—and how Paul had come, and just what had happened. She drank in every word, not interrupting;

Ruth never did say much, her feelings ran deep, and made no foam upon the surface.

But Bunny knew that her whole soul was hanging on his story; she fairly worshiped her brother. “And you never seen him again?” she whispered.

you had to hear Dad’s stories of what was happening to the little fellows, the thousands of investors who had come rushing to the field like moths to a candle-flame.

Then your fairyland was turned into a slaughterhouse, where the many were ground up into sausages for the breakfast of the few!

Dad had a big office now, with a manager and half a dozen clerks, and he sat there, like the captain of a battleship in his conning tower. Whatever might happen to the others, Dad took care of himself and his own.

Bandy’s land, he couldn’t be sure without a survey. They would wait, Dad said, and let Mr. Bandy stay in pickle for a few years.

It was like a cat watching a gopher hole, and which would get tired first.

Bunny asked which was Mr. Bandy, the cat or the gopher; and Dad replied that if anybody ever mistook Jim Ross for a gopher, he would jist try to show them their mistake.

Bunny couldn’t rest there; it was too horrible that Ruth should be beaten because she tried to use her mind. Bunny kept talking about it all afternoon, there ought to be a law to prevent such a thing.

Dad said the law would only interfere in case the father had used unusual and cruel punishment.

Bunny insisted that Dad ought to do something, and Dad laughed, and asked if Bunny wanted him to adopt Ruth. Bunny didn’t want that, but he thought Dad should use his influence with the old man.

“Gee whiz, Dad!” exclaimed the boy. “Eli was saying every word that you taught him! Do you suppose he really believes it all?”

Dad answered that only the Holy Spirit could tell that.

Eli was a lunatic, and a dangerous one, but a kind that you couldn’t put in an asylum, because he used the phrases of religion.

And Paul smiled, rather grimly.

“The money is sacred,” he said; “it belongs to the Holy Spirit, and Eli is His treasurer.”

Next morning they set forth after trout; and on the way they stopped to see Mr. Hardacre. Before they went in, Dad cautioned Bunny, “Now don’t you say a word, and don’t make any faces. Jist let me handle this.” They entered, and Mr.

It told Bunny a lot, when he came to think it over; Dad had guessed that Bunny was worried, and exactly what was his dilemma with the Watkinses; and Dad had had the wit to save Bunny’s face, and avoid the need of confessing.

Dear, kind old Dad, that was anxious to do everything for his boy⁠—that would even do his lying for him!

How could any boy refuse to be content with such a happy solution of his ethical problems?

but you hadn’t intended to let that spoil your Thanksgiving dinner, not a bit!

Those men didn’t mean as much to you as the quail you were going to kill the next day!

Well, the coroner came, and they buried the body of Joe Gundha, on a hilltop a little way back out of sight, and with a wooden cross to mark the spot. It was a job for Mr. Shrubbs, the preacher at Eli’s church;

Bunny was appalled; for he had thought of his father as one of the richest men in the state, and one of the most independent.

“Why, Dad, we don’t own our own business! We don’t even own our souls!”

That started the other on one of his stock themes. Business was business, and not the same as a tea-party. Property was hard to get, and, as he had told his son many times, there was always people trying to take it away from you.

but there it was, and if you was in it, you was in, and you had to fight. It was exactly the same with the business game; there was no safety for you, unless you stood with the group that had power.

If you stepped out of the reservation, the wolves would tear you to pieces in short order.

But Bunny was not satisfied with general principles; he wanted the details of this situation. “Please tell me, Dad, just who are these men we have to work with?”

To the hour of his death, the elder Ross never really understood this strange son of his. He was always being surprised by the intensity with which Bunny took things, which to the father were part of the nature of life.

The father kept two compartments in his mind, one for things that were right, and the other for things that existed, and which you had to allow to exist, and to defend, in a queer, halfhearted, but stubborn way.

But here was this new phenomenon, a boy’s mind which was all one compartment;

It was a fence of barbed wire, eight feet high, and Bertie remarked sarcastically that it would be another place where Bunny and “his Ruth” could grow roses.

This jibe hurt, because it summed up to Bunny the part he was playing in this struggle⁠—growing roses on the barbed wire fence which separated capital from labor.

Dad rebuked Bertie, saying that the men were not criminals, they were decent fellows, most of them, and good Americans; the Germans had nothing to do with it at all. The trouble was, they were being misled by agitators just now.

That was the doctrine Bertie hammered into her younger brother; and Aunt Emma echoed it; and now came Eunice Hoyt, who had chosen Bunny, and had the most powerful leverage of all.

Be young, be young! everybody cried.

Why should you carry all the burden of the world upon your shoulders?

“Goodbye,” said Bunny, feebly; and Paul turned on his heel and hurried away.

Bunny walked on, and there was a fever in his soul.

He was enraged because of Paul’s lack of understanding, his cruel harshness; but all the time another voice inside him kept insisting, “He’s right! You’re soft, you’re soft—that’s the word for it!”

He murmured faintly that something might happen, she might get into trouble; but she told him not to worry about that, she knew about those things and had taken the needed precautions.

Such was the way of Bunny’s initiation into the adult life.

Gone were the days of happy innocence when he could be content to sit holding hands with Rosie Taintor. “Holding hands” was now walking on a slippery ledge, over a dark abyss where pleasure and pain were so mingled you could hardly tell them apart.

Hoyt, whom Dad knew, and she had her own car and had even tried to pay for the supper. So there could be no idea that Bunny was being “vamped,” and all Dad said was “

Take it easy, son, don’t try to live your whole life in a couple of weeks.

”

Also there was Bunny’s sister, and that was curious. Had some underground message come to Bertie, through connections with the “Zulus”? All that she said was, “I’m glad you’ve consented to take an interest in something beside oil and strikers for a change.”

But behind that sentence lay such an ocean of calm feminine knowledge!

Bunny was started upon a new train of thought. Could it be that late hours meant the same thing for his sister that they had suddenly come to mean for him? Bertie was supposed to be dancing;

Could it be that late hours meant the same thing for his sister that they had suddenly come to mean for him? Bertie was supposed to be dancing; and did she always come directly home, or did she also park by the waysides?

Bunny had got over being shocked by the parking of Eunice’s car, but it took him longer to get used to the idea of the parking of his sister’s car.

He began to notice, as he drove along the highways in the evening—what a great number of parked cars there were!

and Mrs. Smith of San Francisco and no one would ask any questions; you paid in advance, because of your lack of baggage, and in the morning you slipped out separately, and no one was the wiser.

You told the folks at home that you had spent the night with a friend, and they did not pursue the matter⁠—being afraid of what they might find out.

All this made a great difference in Bunny’s life, and before long it began to show in his appearance; he was not quite so rosy, and Dad took notice, and was no longer embarrassed to speak. “You’re making a fool of yourself, son;

All this made a great difference in Bunny’s life, and before long it began to show in his appearance; he was not quite so rosy, and Dad took notice, and was no longer embarrassed to speak. “

You’re making a fool of yourself, son; these late hours have got to stop.

” So Bunny would try to get out of going to some dance, and Eunice would fly into his arms, and sob, and cling to him, moulding her body into his in that terrible, breathtaking way she had;

He had troubles enough of his own making, and the next time he met Bunny, he set forth his point of view in one pregnant sentence, “

There’s no such thing as a normal woman in the world!

”

Paul was not going to get overseas, it appeared; the army had put him to work at his old job—building barracks—only now, instead of ten dollars a day he was getting thirty a month “and beans.”

That was what it meant for a workingman to be patriotic!

It was quite a contrast with Tommy Hoyt’s three millions, and the hundred and twenty thousand a week of Dad’s oil-contracts! But nobody thought about that, because of the eloquence of the President’s speeches, and the concentrated ardor of the four minute orators.

It had grown enormous upon the money of an oil king who had bribed half a dozen successive governments in Mexico and the United States, and being therefore in doubt as to the safety of his soul gave large sums to professional soul-savers.

Apparently uncertain which group had the right “dope,” he gave equally to both Catholics and Protestants, and they used the money to denounce and undermine each other.

If Dad had known that his son was to be educated by the donations of Pete O’Reilly, he would have been at once amused and reassured.

Researches were conducted in the Beach City High School, and word came that the young oil prince carried in his bosom a broken heart; which, of course, made him a romantic figure, and added enormously to his prestige.

These things go by contraries, and the girl who landed Bunny did so because she did not try.

The family of Henrietta Ashleigh had had money for generations, and so could afford to look down upon it, and all those who sought it. This was the way to impress Bunny, who was aware that his money was painfully new.

Before long the forbidden ideas were being voiced in Congress, and after that they could not be kept out of the newspapers. It was like a storm that burst over the whole country.

A million idealists like Bunny woke up all at once to the cruel fact that their dolly was stuffed with sawdust.

Yes, it was a trying time to be alive in the world. All those golden promises that had been made to us, those bright hopes we had cherished!

You can imagine what happened then.

When you tell a high-spirited lad that he must not read certain publications, he becomes immediately filled with curiosity to know what they contain.

Bunny went home and sent in his subscription to these papers; quite openly, in his own name. So there was another entry in the card-indexes of the Military Intelligence Department and the Naval Intelligence Department and the Secret Service Department;

Nevertheless, he took the patriotic attitude; the country needed oil, and it was our business to get it. So you see, Dad also was an idealist; and it vexed him that his kind of idealism was so little appreciated by his son.

He was becoming convinced that the university was to blame.

No matter what Bunny might say, it was this “education business” that was unsettling his mind, and spoiling him to deal with practical affairs. Several times Bunny realized that the shrewd old man was probing his mind;

they would pull off their coats and unhitch their suspenders, and ring for the Jap to bring more cigars and whiskey and soda, and they would fill the room with blue smoke and never move from their seats until the small hours of the morning.

It was an amusing illustration of the double standard of morals, that Dad was glad his son preferred to stay in his own room and read, and not hear the stories which the oil men would tell when they broke loose.

But there was no gambling this time—this was to be a highbrow weekend, in honor of “the professor,” as Dad persisted in referring to his guest.

Bunny protested, he had the idea that all kinds of people ought to know one another; but Rachel informed him that she thought too much of herself. “

Probably you’ve never been snubbed in your life, Mr. Ross, but we Jews learn the lesson early in our lives⁠—not to go where we aren’t wanted.

”

“Yes, just that.

I thought I went into the army to put down the Kaiser, but I was kidnapped by some Wall Street bankers, and put to work as a strikebreaker, a scab.

”

They didn’t know what they were there for—they, also, had been kidnapped. There were some that had been to America, and I got to talk with them, and we never had any trouble in agreeing. That was true of Czecho-Slovaks, and Germans—every nation I met.

I tell you, Bunny, if the private soldiers could have talked it over, there wouldn’t have been any war. But that is what is known as treason, and if you try it you’re shot.

”

“Let me tell you, Bunny—I’ve been there, and I know. The Bolsheviks are the only people in that country that have any faith or any solidarity; and they’re going to run it, too—mark my words, the Japs will get out, the same as we did.

You can’t beat people that will die for their cause, the last man and the last woman.

”

Bunny felt his old embarrassment in connection with the Paradise tract; his title to these vast possessions was not clear, and Paul was bound to be jealous, realizing how his family had been tricked.

But, then, in swift flashes of revelation, Bunny discovered how completely out of date these old feelings had become.

Nevermore would Paul be jealous for his lost heritage; never would he consider the claims of the Watkins family—any more than the claims of the Ross family! The Paradise tract belonged to the Paradise workers;

Number 142 had brought in six hundred thousand dollars, whereas Number 143 had brought in only four hundred and fifty thousand. But what difference did it make, when all you would do with the extra hundred and fifty thousand was to drill another well?

Dad’s answer was kept in stock on the shelves of his mind: “The world has got to have oil.”

But then, you looked at the world, and saw enormous crowds of people driving to places where they were no better off than at home! But it would annoy Dad to have you say that—it was a step outside the range of his thinking.

But then, you looked at the world, and saw enormous crowds of people driving to places where they were no better off than at home! But it would annoy Dad to have you say that—it was a step outside the range of his thinking.

To Bunny he now seemed like an old horse in a treadmill; he climbed and climbed, all day long, and at night he climbed in dreams.

But if you should let him out of the treadmill, he would die—for lack of any reason for living.

He had never earned a dollar in his life, yet he had the serene conviction that he could go out and “get a job,” and provide for himself those comforts and luxuries that were a matter of course to him.

But the trouble was, he couldn’t bear to hurt people.

It was what Paul meant when he said that Bunny was “soft.” He entered too easily into other people’s point of view. He saw too clearly why Dad and Mr. Roscoe wanted to buy the Republican convention;

But the trouble was, he couldn’t bear to hurt people. It was what Paul meant when he said that Bunny was “soft.”

He entered too easily into other people’s point of view.

He saw too clearly why Dad and Mr. Roscoe wanted to buy the Republican convention;

Assuming that she would not be entirely indifferent to practical matters, he told about the Ross tract, how he and Dad had discovered it, and how the wells continued to flow. And Mrs. Norman said,

“Oh, money, money, always money! We all of us have too much, and don’t know how to buy happiness with it!”

She went on to reveal that she was Theosophist, and how there was a great mahatma coming, and we were all going to learn to live on a different astral plane.

He took them to an expensive restaurant—thinking to do them honor, and forgetting that they might feel uneasy as to their clothes and their table manners.

Verily, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the feelings of the disinherited.

Bunny found Rachel quite altered from the drab, hardworking girl he had known. She belonged to that oriental type which can pick fruit in the sun for several weeks without worrying about complexions;

They happened first to be discussing a lady vamp, recently imported from abroad with much clashing of advertising cymbals. “She dresses in very good taste,” said Annabelle, mildly.

“Oh, perfect!” said Vee. “Absolutely perfect! She selected her dog to match her face!”

And then presently they were talking about that million dollar production, The Old Oaken Bucket, which was just then waking home memories and wringing tears from the eyes of millions of hardened sinners.

“Fold your hands, like good little children,” ordered Vee, “and bow your heads.” And then with slow and solemn intonation she began:

“Our Movie, which art Heaven, Hollywood be Thy Name. Let Koski come. His Will be done, in studio as in bed.”

There was a gasp, and then a roar of laughter swept the table; no explanations were needed, they all knew their emperor, master of the destiny of hundreds of screen actresses. “Go on!” shouted voices;

“I want to know what it’s all about.”

“Life! What the hell are we here for, and where do we go when we get through?”

“If I knew,” said Bunny, “I would surely tell you.”

“It’s the devil!” said the other. “I’d pay anybody ten year’s salary if they’d teach me to forget the whole damn business.”

“Yes,” said Bunny; “but then, what would you direct?”

And the super-director looked at him, bewildered, and suddenly burst out laughing. “By God, that’s so! That’s a good one! Ho, ho, ho!” And he went off, presumably to pass the good one on.

I woan be treated like a baby! I woan come this damn place again! It’s an outrage! I’m a grown man an I got a right get drunk if I wanna—” and so his weeping voice died into the elevator!

“Mr. Ross,” said Vee Tracy, “there are two cries that one hears at Hollywood parties. The first is, I don’t want to go to bed; and the second is, I do.”

When Bunny made his appearance on Sunday morning, he had the Monastery all to himself. He breakfasted, and read the papers, which had been delivered from the nearest railroad station;

but Tessie doesn’t care, she knows that nothing can hurt her social position, she’s too rich; and besides, she’s an old booze-fighter, and knows how to forget her troubles.”

“My God!” exclaimed Bunny. “What property does to people!”

“To women especially,” said Vee. “It’s too much for their nerves. I look at the old women I meet, and think, which of them do I want to be? And I say, Oh, my God!

But no, she was not angry; and somehow, she was able to understand.

There is an old saying, that fingers were made before forks, and in the same way it is true that embraces were made a long time before words.

Bunny became aware that his clasp was being returned—and by a pair of capable arms, that were able to hold a girl upside down in the air and carry her into the surf! It was all right! “Oh, Vee!” he whispered.

And Dad took a couple of puffs at his big cigar.

“Now you see why we oil men have to be in politics!”

Besides completing Bunny’s political education, this incident was important to him in another way; it was the cause of Vee Tracy’s taking over the management of his life.

Yes, even Vernon Roscoe got drunk, because Annabelle was too drunk to stop him; Vee Tracy defied her doctor, and Dad forgot his resolutions, and even Bunny drank enough to make him fear for his idealism.

Man is a gregarious animal, and it is hard not to do what everybody you know is doing!

Christmas had come, and the quail were calling from the hills at Paradise. There were not so many on the tract, but there was plenty of adjacent land over which an oil prince and his royal sire were welcome to shoot.

Bunny would have thought the idea exaggerated—but then he remembered that five hundred dollars his father had given to Eli! Also, he remembered a remark of Vernon Roscoe at the Monastery—

“They can have their pie in the sky, so long as they let me have the oil.”

Annabelle had given a frightened exclamation, “Hush, Verne! What a horrid thing to say!” For Annabelle knew that the heavenly powers are jealous, and liable to cruel whims.

She answered, “If your friends really care for you, they’ll wish you to be happy.” And when he said something about it’s being cowardly to run away, she made a striking reply.

“We’re going to have roast spring lamb for dinner, but you didn’t consider it necessary to visit the slaughterhouse.”

“Annabelle,” he replied, “you are a social philosopher.” And she told him that people went to universities to learn long names for plain common sense!

“Annabelle,” he replied, “you are a social philosopher.”

And she told him that people went to universities to learn long names for plain common sense!

Evidently the plot was deeply laid; for when Bunny got back home, there was Dad, inquiring, “Did Verne say anything about what he wants me to do?”

She flew to his arms, and he covered her with kisses, and it was like an orchestra that went surging up in their hearts.

It is an extremely unsettling thing to have a whole orchestra inside you!

Well, Paul got out, and Bunny was supposed to be satisfied. To be sure, seven other fellows were in, and Bunny knew them all;

students putting in bills for this and that, students looking for easy jobs, students and alumni building up a machine, and paying themselves and their henchmen with contracts and favors.

Such was the result of an oil king’s resolve to manufacture culture wholesale, by executive order!

Bunny went to see the young lawyer whom the oil workers’ union had engaged to defend the eight “political prisoners.” The union had since become practically extinct, and the young lawyer had been wondering where he was going to get his pay.

Nobody did anything original, but everybody followed fashions; the public’s taste ran to society pictures, and nobody would look at a war picture—but presently the public would want war pictures, and after that costume pictures, and then sea pictures, and then back to society pictures.

Vee’s friends changed their bootleggers, but it was always the same stuff they drank.

Also they changed their lovers; a certain man slept with a certain woman, and then presently it was a different woman—but the more it changed, the more it was the same thing.

She nodded in assent; and as she saw Bunny’s hands clench, she said, “You don’t have to do any heroics.

There can’t be a shotgun wedding when the bride refuses to attend.

”

“You needn’t be. The doctor says it’s done a million times a year in the United States. I amused myself figuring that out—it’s about once every thirty seconds.

Life is a messy business. Let’s talk about something else!

”

If they found out, it would be all over with their friendship, they would be sure they had been basely betrayed, or at least that Bunny was such a scatterbrain that it was unsafe to have him about.

Vee wanted to be loyal and romantic and melodramatic, just like one of her “continuities.”

And Bunny was bored, and told her that Dad had probably told Verne all about the matter, at the time that he, Bunny, had told his father.

Did Dad really believe that? It was hard for Bunny to be sure. Dad had lies that he told to the public; and perhaps he had others that he told to his son, and yet others that he told to himself.

If you laid hold of him and tore all those lies away, he would not be able to stand the sight of his nakedness.

His enemies, the soreheads in Congress, were busily engaged in depriving him of these spiritual coverings. There was one old senator in Washington by the name of LaFollette—his head had been sore for forty years, and no way could be found to heal it.

Did Dad really believe that? It was hard for Bunny to be sure.

Dad had lies that he told to the public; and perhaps he had others that he told to his son, and yet others that he told to himself.

If you laid hold of him and tore all those lies away, he would not be able to stand the sight of his nakedness.

… man whose fame was based upon the legend that he had put down a strike of the Boston policemen, when the truth was that he had been hiding in his hotel room, with a black eye presented to him by the mayor of the city.

His dream in life, as reported by himself, was to keep a store, and that was the measure of his mentality. He didn’t know what to say, and so the newspapers called him a “strong silent man.”

Bunny didn’t publish much of this, because Rachel didn’t approve of gossip. But they did publish some of the inside facts about professionalism in college athletics, and when this was offered for sale on the campuses, the athletic students mobbed the “Ypsels.”

he must rest first. But the rest didn’t help him, because he fretted for something to do, and for his secretary to do. To go driving up and down the same coast was monotonous; while to sit at tea-parties and chatter with fashionable idlers—

Dad had unutterable contempt for these people, they weren’t even crude and healthy, like the rich in California, no, they were rotten to the core, vicious and terrible people.

The ex-mule-driver took one look into their gilded gambling palace, that was famed all over the world, and he went outside and spit on the steps—faugh! He was even willing to consider Bunny’s argument, that such people were made by generations of hereditary privilege;

Over and over Eli would tell his story, full of the most convincing details—why, he even told how the angels’ wings had swished, and sometimes splashed water into his face; he told the very words the angels had spoken to him.

Said the prophet, if God in His Omnipotence could keep Jonah three days in the belly of a whale, and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the burning fiery furnace, why could he not keep Eli Watkins afloat on the sea? It is obvious that no one could answer that.

And then came an incident which settled the matter, completing the glory of the Third Revelation. Eli happened to look inside his green bathing suit, and what should he find but a snow-white feather!

There were the shouting thousands, the cameras, and the reporters, including those whose duty it would be to cable the stirring news back to New York and Angel City.

The world grows one, and it is the “cinéma-mélodrame de la Société” that is doing it⁠—which is to say the world grows American.

The premiere here in Paris was the same as a premiere in Hollywood, except that the crowd made more noise, and sought to embrace its idol, actually imperilling the idol’s life.

It was all just as grand as their tour to New York; perfect roads, beautiful scenery, humble peasantry standing cap in hand and awestricken, servants rushing to wait upon them at every stop.

All Europe owes us money, and this is how it pays.

And then Berlin—“Erste Auffuehrung in Deutschland, Schmolsky-Superba ankuendigt,” etc. And the crowds and the cameras and the reporters—the world was one. This had been enemy country less than six years ago;

Bunny told what he had learned in Vienna, and how his article on Romania had been stolen;

Paul said that in every European capital there were more spies than there were lice.

Very probably there was some agent sitting at one of these tables, trying to hear what they said. His baggage was rifled every few days.

Paul answered that armaments produce wars automatically; the capitalists who make the armaments have to see that they are used, in order to get to make more. Bunny said that the idea of another war seemed too horrible to think about; and Paul replied, “

So you don’t think about it, and that makes it easy for the business men to get it ready.

”

in their crazy greed they killed or injured seventy-three percent of all the men they put to work on Prospect Hill—that’s government statistics also! And don’t you see how that’s the world war exactly?

The workers doing the fighting, and the bankers getting the bonds!

”

Paul answered, “

Some people hate the radical movement because they don’t understand it, and some because they do.

” After Bunny had had time to digest that, he went on, “Either you’ll have to change your ideas, or you’ll have a break with the girl. That’s something I’m sure about—you can’t have happiness in love unless it’s built on harmony of ideas.

Paul answered, “Some people hate the radical movement because they don’t understand it, and some because they do.” After Bunny had had time to digest that, he went on, “

Either you’ll have to change your ideas, or you’ll have a break with the girl.

That’s something I’m sure about—you can’t have happiness in love unless it’s built on harmony of ideas. Otherwise you quarrel all the time—or at least, you’re bored.”

And then Dad took his son to one side and placed an envelope in his hands. It was an order on Verne to turn over thirty-two hundred shares of Ross Consolidated Class B stock; a little more than a million at the market.

They were “street certificates,” Dad explained

—he had already signed them and left them with Verne, in case they wished to market them. “And now, son,” said the old man, “have a little sense—this is a pile of money, and don’t throw it away.

There was no new thought that Bunny could think about all this; any more than in the case of Vee Tracy. Just the grief, and the ache of loneliness!

Old things going; they kept going⁠—and where did they go?

It was a mystery that made you dizzy, at moments like this; you stood on the brink of a precipice and looked down into a gulf!

And right when both of them needed cash, and were having to go to one of their father’s bankers to borrow money on the basis of their claims to the estate.

Bertie raved and stormed, and Bunny, to get it over with, took the bonds to the bank and turned them in; and after that Bertie never forgave him, she would mention his imbecility every time they were alone.

She was making herself ill with all this hatred and fuming; she would sit up half the night poring over figures, and then she couldn’t sleep for excitement.

They’ll work earnestly for a while, but they’ll never be efficient, and if you really have any buildings put up, or any food raised, you’ll have regulation hard-fisted workingmen to do it. I know, because we’re picking walnuts now!”

“I don’t want a polite place,” said Bunny. “I want a gymnasium where people train for the class struggle; and if we can’t have discipline any other way, how about this as part of the course⁠—every student is pledged to go to jail for not less than thirty days.”

“Attaboy!” cried Peter Nagle. “Now you’re talking!”

Would your danger be in setting the standard too easy, so that you wouldn’t accomplish much, or in setting it too high, so that you wouldn’t have any students? Bunny, the young idealist, was for setting it high; and

Harry Seager said that people would volunteer more quickly to die than they would to get along without tobacco.

And he wanted to know, what were they going to do about the Communists. Harry was no politician any more, he was a social revolutionist, and only waiting for the day of action.

Bunny admitted that this worried him. “I suppose we’ll have to conform to bourgeois standards.”

“Oh, my God!” cried Peter Nagle. “Let the bourgeoisie begin!”

Jacob Menzies, the student, had just been reading a book about Ruskin, the old-time Socialist colony in Tennessee. It was the sex problem which had broken up that colony, he declared;

Alyse Ross’ lawyers, and demanded her personal signature, attested in France. In short, the estate couldn’t get the money in time for the sale, and it was Vernon Roscoe who bought the Ross Consolidated stock at a bargain.

Oh, how Bertie raved and swore⁠—the veritable daughter of a mule-driver!

Verne, the filthy swine, had put that trick over on them! Not content with having stolen Dad’s papers, he had diddled them along like this, and got one of his crooked judges to hold up the order, so that he might grab another plum!

“Oh, Bunny!” She was staring at him, but it was too dark to reveal any possible twinkle in his eyes. “Are you joking?”

“Rachel,” he said, “will you take that much trouble to preserve the good name of our institution?”

He came a step nearer, and she stammered, “Bunny, you don’t—you don’t mean that!”

“Don’t misunderstand me, I’m proud of my race. But all your friends would think it was a mistake.”

“My friends, Rachel? Who the devil are my friends⁠—except in the radical movement? And where would the radical movement be without the Jews?”

“My sister is not my friend. Neither did she ask me to pick out her husband.”

“My friends, Rachel? Who the devil are my friends—except in the radical movement? And where would the radical movement be without the Jews?”

“My sister is not my friend. Neither did she ask me to pick out her husband.”

Rachel stood, twisting her fingers together nervously. “Bunny, do you really—you aren’t just speaking on an impulse?”

“I can’t help it; you don’t know how a woman feels. I don’t want you to do something out of a generous impulse, and then you’d feel bound, and you wouldn’t be happy. You oughtn’t to marry a girl out of the sweatshops.”

“Good God, Rachel, my father was a mule-driver.”

“Yes, but you’re Anglo-Saxon; away back somewhere your ancestors were proud of themselves. You ought to marry a tall, fair woman that will stay beautiful all her life, and look right in a drawing-room.

“I’ll tell you—I’m so tired of being quarreled with. You can’t have any idea—my whole life, since I began to think for myself, has been one wrangle with the people who loved me, or thought they had a right to direct me.

You can’t imagine what a sense of peace I get when I think of being with you; it’s like settling down into nice soft cushions.

I’ve hesitated about it, because of course I’m not very proud of the Vee Tracy episode, and I didn’t know if you’d take a man secondhand—or third-hand it really is, because there was a girl while I was in high school.

I’ve hesitated about it, because of course I’m not very proud of the Vee Tracy episode, and I didn’t know if you’d take a man secondhand—or third-hand it really is, because there was a girl while I was in high school.

I’m telling you my drawbacks, to balance your getting fat!

”