“We’ll go down together, my boy--for the first day.” He consulted his watch. “It’s eight-twenty now. As a rule, I think Mr. McGill will want you at the office at eight. It takes forty minutes from here to the office. Fifteen minutes for breakfast.” He reckoned and rang the bell. To the entering girl: “Anne, Mr. David’s regular breakfast time will be ten past seven.” His face had been long, looking away. It turned again toward David, and broadened. He winked. Yes: he was trying to be kind. “Does your watch keep good time?” he asked. Why should this question seem to bring him relief? “See to that, my boy. The City is run on _schedule_. On _schedule_. That’s why it’s a great City. That’s what makes a great City out of a piece of country. Manhattan once had fields in it. And a few hills. Oh, yes--Central Park was a squatter’s marsh. Wait till you see it with its new asphalt roads! Some day there’ll be asphalt roads all over the country.” “It’ll be hard on the horses,” David felt he must inform his uncle. “Hard on the horses? Maybe. Maybe it will. That’s the rule of civilization. It is hard on us all. Hard on the workers and hard on the bosses. It’s worth it. Progress must have her dividends. When Captains of Industry die of overwork, should we spare horses? We’ll do without them!” Mr. Deane made a long strip of his napkin and ran it horizontally, methodically over his mouth. “You see,” he went on, “you’ll have to change your outlook on life, now that you are to become a part of the great City--a part of the great Machine. You’ll be proud of it, soon enough. The New Yorker is a man of service. He serves Business. He serves Country. He don’t think of himself. Look at me. Your Aunt Lauretta is away vacationing. I stay here and work. I don’t think of myself. I’ve not taken three weeks off in twenty years’ time. I stick to my guns. They can trust me in the City. They know I am faithful: I am always on the spot. The easy jolly ways of the country don’t go far in the Metropolis. We’re a beehive, we are. Work! Service! And the ambition of each man is to die in harness. Of course, I mean the men who _succeed_. That is the one way to earn real money in New York. To think of absolutely nothing else: to give time to absolutely nothing else. There’s the American Ideal of Service for you.” He paused and glowed upon his nephew who sat, stiffly erect, trying to believe, in order that he might like this talk.... “And, my boy, what’s the result? Don’t you know?... America is the result!” He flourished his white hands. “The great Democracy. The land of three and a half million square miles. We’ve made it. The American Ideal made it. I’ve been out West. I’ve seen our country. The Rockies that you could drop the Alps into--lose them. The Grand Canyon that’s a mile from top to bottom. The geysers in Yellowstone Park. The greatest, most populous, the _biggest_ country on Earth! And we’ve made it. We’re making it, my boy. American Ideals.”