That started the other on one of his stock themes. Business was business, and not the same as a tea-party. Property was hard to get, and, as he had told his son many times, there was always people trying to take it away from you. If there was going to be any security for wealth, there had to be discipline, and men of wealth had to stand together. It might seem harsh, if you didn’t understand, but it was the way of life. Look at that war over there in Europe; it was a horrible thing—jist made you sick to think about it; but there it was, and if you was in it, you was in, and you had to fight. It was exactly the same with the business game; there was no safety for you, unless you stood with the group that had power. If you stepped out of the reservation, the wolves would tear you to pieces in short order. But Bunny was not satisfied with general principles; he wanted the details of this situation. “Please tell me, Dad, just who are these men we have to work with?” Dad answered: they were a group, it was hard to define them, you might say the “open shop crowd;” they were the big business men who ran Angel City, and the territory which lived upon the city, or supported the city, according as you looked at it. They had several organizations, not merely the Petroleum Employers’ Federation, but the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association, the Chamber of Commerce, the Bankers’ Club. They were interlocked, and a little group ran them all—Fred Naumann could call a dozen men on the telephone, and turn you into an outcast from business society; no bank would lend you a dollar, and none of the leading merchants would give you credit, some would refuse to do business with you even for cash. To the hour of his death, the elder Ross never really understood this strange son of his. He was always being surprised by the intensity with which Bunny took things, which to the father were part of the nature of life. The father kept two compartments in his mind, one for things that were right, and the other for things that existed, and which you had to allow to exist, and to defend, in a queer, half-hearted, but stubborn way. But here was this new phenomenon, a boy’s mind which was all one compartment; things ought to be right, and if they were not right, you ought to _make_ them right, or else what was the use of having any right—you were only fooling yourself about it. “Listen, Dad,” the boy pleaded; “isn’t there some way we could break that combination? Couldn’t you stop your new developments, and put everything on a cash basis, and go slow? You know, that might be better, in a way; you’re trying to do too much, and you need a rest badly.” The other could not help smiling, in spite of the pain he read in Bunny’s face. “Son,” he answered, “if I set out to buck that game, I’d never have another hour’s rest, till you buried me up there on the hill beside Joe Gundha.”