I think he must, at first, have been glad to be rid of his railroad responsibilities. At any rate, that was one of the occasions when, as though in festive mood, he played the part of Santa Claus in the family circle, presenting each of his two sons and each of his two daughters with one million dollars—a little attention certainly calculated to fortify a parent in the esteem of his children. But, as we have learnt, any temporary feeling of relief was followed by a sense of not having enough to do; and so he set in to assist feeding the newspaper Press and the cardboard users of Europe and North America. And now to resume the report of our conversation. “But,” I said, when he confessed to having felt lost without his railway, “you still had your enormous timber business to occupy you?” “Oh,” he replied, “I’ve been in lumber so long that the exciting part of it has got worn off.” The “exciting part!” Here was a clue, and I eagerly probed further. “Then the interest lies in the doing, not in the results?” I asked, speaking from the depths of my ignorance of what it feels like to be a millionaire. “Yes,” said J. R. Booth, “to build up and afterwards to improve—that occupies the mind, and is a great pleasure; but he is a miserable man who gets to the end of it.” His words carried a note of pathos to the ear. There was no mistaking the implication—a great organising capitalist, a millionaire many times over, was suggested as a case for compassion. I did not speak. The earnest expression of those blue eyes told me there was more to come. “The advantage,” J. R. Booth went on, “is certainly with the manual worker, as distinguished from the man who does the mental part. If he is healthy, and sleeps well, and eats well, no man enjoys life more than the working man. Only,” he added ruefully, “you can’t make him believe it. I have been in both places, and I prefer the heavy end of it.” Those words were ringing in my memory when, later in the afternoon, I was talking with one of J. R. Booth’s lieutenants. He was telling me something that I scarcely needed to be told, namely, that the entire staff felt, not merely respect, but personal affection for the old man—the wonderful old man whose knowledge, patience and industry seemed without limit; the old man who was never known to be beaten by a difficulty. And even while we were talking I chanced to look through the glass panel of a door that gave entrance to an inner office. In that office I again saw J. R. Booth. But it was J. R. Booth in a new aspect—an aspect that held my eyes enthralled. The Lumber King was leaning over a desk studying some document, his face alight with interest, yet immovable as marble.