Part 38 (2/2)

all the time an'--an'--”

The big eyes were fixed on Helen's face as the' young woman stooped over the bed, and the light of a glorious smile transformed the wasted childish features.

”Why--why--yer--yer've come!”

CHAPTER XXV

McIVER'S OPPORTUNITY

When the politician stopped at the cigar stand late that afternoon for a box of the kind he gave his admirers, the philosopher, scratching the revenue label, remarked, ”I see by the papers that McIver is still a-stayin'.”

”Humph!” grunted the politician with careful diplomacy.

The bank clerk who was particular about his pipe tobacco chimed in, ”McIver is a stayer all right when it comes to that.”

”Natural born fighter, sir,” offered the politician tentatively.

”Game sport, McIver is,” agreed the undertaker, taking the place at the show case vacated by the departing bank clerk.

The philosopher, handing out the newcomer's favorite smoke, echoed his customer's admiration. ”You bet he's a game sport.” He punched the cash register with vigor. ”Don't give a hang what it costs the other fellow.”

The undertaker laughed.

”I remember one time,” said the philosopher, ”McIver and a bunch was goin' fis.h.i.+n' up the river. They stopped here early in the morning and while they was gettin' their smokes the judge--who's always handin' out some sort of poetry stuff, you know--he says: 'Well, Jim, we're goin'

to have a fine day anyway. No matter whether we catch anything or not it will be worth the trip just to get out into the country.' Mac, he looked at the judge a minute as if he wanted to bite him--you know what I mean--then he says in that growlin' voice of his, 'That may do for you all right, judge, but I'm here to tell you that when _I_ go fis.h.i.+n'

_I go for fish_.'”

The cigar-store philosopher's story accurately described the dominant trait in the factory man's character. To him business was a sport, a game, a contest of absorbing interest. He entered into it with all the zest and strength of his virile manhood. Mind and body, it absorbed him. And yet, he knew nothing of that true sportsman's pa.s.sion which plays the game for the joy of the game itself. McIver played to win; not for the sake of winning, but for the value of the winnings. Methods were good or bad only as they won or lost. He was incapable of experiencing those larger triumphs which come only in defeat. The Interpreter's philosophy of the ”oneness of all” was to McIver the fanciful theory of an impracticable dreamer, who, too feeble to take a man's part in life, contented himself by formulating creeds of weakness that befitted his state. Men were the pieces with which he played his game--they were of varied values, certainly, as are the pieces on a chess table, but they were pieces on the chess table and nothing more.

All of which does not mean that Jim McIver was cruel or unkind. Indeed, he was genuinely and generously interested in many worthy charities, and many a man had appealed to him, and not in vain, for help. But to have permitted these humanitarian instincts to influence his play in the game of business would have been, to his mind, evidence of a weakness that was contemptible. The human element, he held, must, of necessity, be sternly disregarded if one would win.

While his fellow townsmen were discussing him at the cigar stand, and men everywhere in Millsburgh were commenting on his determination to break the strikers to his will at any cost, McIver, at his office, was concluding a conference with a little company of his fellow employers.

It was nearly dark when the conference finally ended and the men went their several ways. McIver, with some work of special importance waiting his attention, telephoned that he would not be home for dinner.

He would finish what he had to do and would dine at the club later in the evening.

The big factory inside the high, board fence was silent. The night came on. Save for the armed men who guarded the place, the owner was alone.

Absorbed in his consideration of the business before him, the man was oblivious of everything but his game. An hour went by. He forgot that he had had no dinner. Another hour--and another.

He was interrupted at last by the entrance of a guard.

”Well, what do you want?” he said, shortly, when the man stood before him.

”There's a woman outside, sir. She insists that she must see you.”

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