“Only those who give something to the world are important to the world. What do you give? What have you ever given? You have studied. You are so crammed with dry knowledge that you crackle like parchment. What good does it do anybody? What good does it do you? Did you ever help a living creature with your knowledge? I cannot imagine it. You study for the sake of increasing your own store, not with the hope of being able to use all your knowledge to do something for the world. You are a miser. You fill your mind with all sorts of things, and keep them there. It is utterly selfish, utterly useless. Think of the great men whose work you study, the great thinkers and scientists of all ages. Why did they work? Was it to hoard knowledge or to give it to the world in order that the world might live more easily or more happily? They are important because they were useful. You--Why, Mr. Pell, you are the most conspicuously useless human being I have ever encountered.” He regarded her a moment before speaking. “Is your thesis complete?” he asked, gravely. “It is.” “I shall give it my best consideration,” he said, and turned again to his work. It was not easy for Carmel again to concentrate upon the books of the _Free Press_, which, with only a limited knowledge of the bewildering science of bookkeeping, she was examining. Bookkeeping is a science. It is the science of translating simple financial facts into abstruse cipher in order that nobody may understand them except an individual highly trained in cabalistics. The reason for this is clear. It is a conspiracy among bookkeepers to make bookkeepers necessary and thus to afford themselves with a means of livelihood.... Carmel was reading the cipher in order to determine if the _Free Press_ were in worse or better case for her ownership of it. Love and bookkeeping are subjects which do not blend, for, as anybody knows, love is not an exact science. Also it is a characteristic that love meddles with everything and blends with nothing. It is intensely self-centered and jealous. Therefore, as may be supposed, Carmel had difficulty in arriving at conclusions.