"Well," I said, "what of that? You don't need a bureau." "It's not that," he said; "I own stock in it." At noon he went out. When he came in his face was clear, and he went back to his proof. As I was leaving that night he spoke abruptly: "Miss Wakely," he said, "I am sorry to have to tell you something--I am indeed. After this week I must not have you any more." For this I was utterly unprepared. I looked up at him with all the terror and despair which filled me. "I'm not doing your work well?" I tried to say. But--"You're doing my work," he answered, "as I never hoped to have it done. It isn't that. It isn't only that this failure leaves me with very little money. There's thirty thousand dollars owing to lecture and Chautauqua people, and the company hasn't a cent." "You mean," I said, "that you will help pay this thirty thousand?" "There's no one else," he answered. "I'm the only stockholder who has anything at all. And the rest have families." "Can they compel you to do this?" I asked. It is amazing how the brute instincts reappear in areas new; to experience. I was civilized enough in some things, and yet instinctively I asked: "Can they compel you?" He merely stood smiling down at me. "Most of the speakers are twenty-dollar-a-night men," he said. "They can't lose it, you see." "I beg your pardon," I said, and went out to the street in a kind of glory. So he was like this! That Saturday night he handed me my pay, with, "Good-by, Miss Wakely. I can't thank you--I really can't, you know." "Good-by, Mr. Ember," I replied cheerfully, and went. On Monday morning, when he came into the workroom with his letters I sat there oiling the typewriter. He stared at me. "Miss Wakely," he said in distress, "I must have muddled it awfully. I wasn't clear--" "Yes," I said, "you were clear. But I thought I'd enjoy keeping on with the proof. May I have a clean cloth for the machine?" He came over to the typewriter table, and stood looking down at me. I dared not look up, because I was worried about my eyes and what they might have to say. Then he put out his hand, and I gave him mine. "I'm afraid I'll get typewriter oil on you," I said, "and it's smelly." He went on with the letters without another word. There were two great envelopes of proof. He never could have got through them alone. The night that he spoke to the girls, I went over early and slipped in the back seat. The hall was filled; I was glad of that. And as soon as he began speaking I saw that he knew how to talk to them. He was just talking to them about the fundamental of human growth, and how the whole industrial struggle was nothing but the assertion of the right of the workers to growth. He showed this struggle as but one phase of something as wide as life.