There again, what people kept saying about life, things clever people said and that got accepted as the clever things _to_ say, how awfully beside the mark they seem to you, when you found out actual facts by coming up against them. What a difference some first-hand experience with what you were talking about, did make with what you said. What clever folks ought to say was not that the workmen were as good as the head or the same sort of flesh and blood, because they weren't; but that the head exploited his natural capacities out of all proportion, getting such an outrageous share of the money they all made together, for doing what was natural to him, and what he enjoyed doing. Take himself for instance. If by some freak, he could make more money out of being one of the hands, would he go down in the ranks, stand at a machine all day and cut the same wooden shapes, hour after hour: or drive a team day after day where somebody else told him to go? You bet your life he wouldn't! He didn't need all the money he could squeeze out of everybody concerned, to make him do his job as manager. His real pay was the feeling of managing, of doing a job he was fitted for, and that was worth doing. How fine it had always been of Marise to back him up in that view of the business, not to want him to cheat the umpire, even if he could get away with it, even though it would have meant enough sight more money for them, even though the umpire didn't exist as yet, except in his own conscience, in his own idea of what he was up to in his business. Never once had Marise had a moment of that backward-looking hankering for more money that turned so many women into pillars of salt and their husbands into legalized sneak-thieves. He pulled out some of the letters from Canada about the Powers case, and fingered them over a little. He had brought them home this evening, and it wasn't the first time either, to try to get a good hour alone with Marise to talk it over with her. He frowned as he reflected that he seemed to have had mighty little chance for talking anything over with Marise since his return. There always seemed to be somebody sticking around; one of the two men next door, who didn't have anything to do _but_ stick around, or Eugenia, who appeared to have settled down entirely on them this time. Well, perhaps it was just as well to wait a little longer and say nothing about it, till he had those last final verifications in his hands. What in thunder did Eugenia come to visit them for, anyhow? Their way of life must make her sick. Why did she bother? Oh, probably her old affection for Marise. They had been girls together, of course, and Marise had been good to her. Women thought more of those old-time relations than men. Well, he could stand Eugenia if she could stand them, he guessed. But she wasn't one who grew on him with the years.