Jerry hesitated, repeated the word and then paced the floor silently for a moment. I thought it wise to remain silent. "Oh, I know what it all means to those men. Power! Always! More power! And I don't want it if it's going to make me the kind of man that Henry Ballard is, blind to beauty, deaf to the voice of compassion, a piece of machinery, as coldly scientific in his charities as he is in the--" "But that's necessary, Jerry," I broke in. "A man of Henry Ballard's wealth must plan to put his money where it will do the most good--" "Or where it will magnify the name of Henry Ballard," he said quickly. "Oh, I don't know much yet, but I'm pretty sure that kind of thing isn't what Christ meant." He threw out his arms in a wide gesture. "Roger, I've talked to some of these poor people. There's something wrong with these charity organizations. They're too cold. They patronize too much. They don't get under the skin." "You haven't wasted a great deal of time," I remarked when he paused. He smiled. "Well, you know, I couldn't sit in a club window and watch the buses go by." "Have you declared these revolutionary sentiments to your executors?" I asked after awhile. He threw himself in an armchair and sighed. "I suppose I ought to say that Mr. Ballard has been very patient with me. He was. I told him that I didn't want any more money, that I had enough. I think I rather startled him, for he looked at me for a long while over the half-moons in his glasses before he spoke. "'I don't think you realize the seriousness (he wanted to say enormity but didn't) of your point of view. There's no standing still in this world,' he said. 'If you don't go ahead, you're going to go back. That's all very well for you personally if you choose to remain idle, but it won't do where great financial interests are involved. I want to try to make you understand that a going concern moves of its own momentum. But it's so heavy that once you stop it, it won't go again. The thought of abandoning your career is in itself hazardous. I hope you will not repeat the sentiments you have expressed to me elsewhere. If the street heard what you have just said there would be a fall in your securities which might be disastrous.' "'But other people would benefit, wouldn't they?' I asked. "He glared at me, speechless, Roger, and got very red in the face. 'And this,' he stammered at last, 'is the fine result of your Utopia. Ideals! Dreams! My God! If your father could hear you--he'd rise in his grave!' "I'm just what he made me,' I said coolly. "He stared at me again as though he hadn't heard what I had said. "'Do you mean that you're going to abandon this career we've made for you, the most wonderful that could be given mortal man?' he asked, though his tone was not pleasant. "I did owe him a lot, you see. He's true to his own ideals, though they're not mine. And I was very uncomfortable.