They went, and Reuben exhibited his factory with thoroughness, with the zest of a man who had created it, but now and then with the impatience of the expert who does not concede enough to the slow-following thought of the lay mind. Edward began with every intention to appreciate, but as Reuben explained the processes, found nothing but antipathy grow within him. He breathed a foul, hot, dust-laden air, he hadn’t a mechanical turn of mind and was mystified by operations which Reuben imagined he expounded lucidly. Once the thread was lost, the whole affair was simply puzzlement and he had the feeling of groping in a fog, a hideously noisy fog, where wheels monotonously went round, spinning mules beat senselessly to and fro and dirty men and women looked resentfully at him. It seemed to him a hell worse than any Dante had described, with sufferers more hopeless, bound in stupid misery. He was not thinking of the sufferers with any great humanitarianism: they were of a lower order and this no doubt was all that they were fit for. He was thinking of them with disgust, objecting to breathe the same air, revolted by their smells, but he was conscious of, at least, some sentiment of pity. If he had understood the meaning of it all, he felt that he would have seen things like these in true perspective, but he missed the keys to it, was nauseated when he ought to have been interested and his attempted queries grew less and less to the point. Reuben perceived at last that he was lecturing an inattentive audience. “Come into the office,” he said, and in that humaner place, with its great bureau, its library of ledgers and its capacious chairs for callers, where the engine throbbed with a diminished hum, Edward tried to collect his thoughts. “This,” Reuben emphasized, “is where I do my work. I go through the factory twice a day, otherwise, I am to be found in here. A glass of wine to wash the dust out of your throat?” Edward was grateful: but wine could not wash his repugnance away. “Well, now,” asked Reuben, “what do you think?” “Frankly, sir, I am hardly capable of thought.” “No,” said Reuben meditatively. “No. Its bigness takes the breath away.” But Edward was not thinking of bigness. “If I say anything now which appears strange to you, I hope you will attribute it to my inexperience. I am thinking of those people I have seen. To spend so many hours a day in such conditions seems to me a very dreadful thing.” “Work has to be done, Edward, and they are used to it. You will find that there are only two sorts of people in this world, the drivers and the driven.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Which are you going to be?” “I?” The personal application caught him unawares, then he mentally pulled himself together. If he was in for it, he could meet it.