He had preserved stainless the morals and directed successfully, though thanklessly, the spiritual education of his son for twenty-one wasted years. The lad had turned out incorrigible. That did not alter the fact that Johnathan had done his duty. His conscience was now clear. He had discharged his obligations to God and State. He was a free man. The attainment of his majority and the acquisition of a “helpmeet” left Nathan to be treated as a man. And the chief incident in that treatment was a deliberate campaign soon started for a show-down to determine who was to be manager of that box-shop. The effect on the business did not seem to occur to Johnathan. Or if he thought about it, he told himself the business was so large he could afford to lose occasionally for the sake of winning a principle. Not once did the man realize or admit the rights of stockholders, or consider them on a par with himself in the matter of ownership. Stockholders were but a step raised above “help.” They had merely been privileged to share in a small portion of the company’s annual profits. Fiddlesticks with stockholders! Nathan had kept the firm “right side up” and always progressing in the right direction. Johnathan had thereby gained the idea that businesses—at least manufacturing businesses—once established, ran themselves. By sheer force of organization! He now set out deliberately and maliciously to checkmate his son and retard him in every way he could conceive. The business was a bit beyond Johnathan’s grasp. So he decided upon a policy of “retrenchment.” “Retrenchment” became his slogan and the motto on his ensign. Refusing to order necessary office and factory supplies was “retrenchment.” Turning down requests for quotations on new business on the ground that the company already had business enough was “retrenchment.” “Docking” a little flaxen-haired stenographer a half-day’s wages when she went home ill at three in the afternoon was “retrenchment.” Anything and everything that could discount Nathan, discredit his administration, get the employees dissatisfied with the boy’s management, curtail production so to show a loss which could be triumphantly charged to Nathan—all this was “retrenchment”—most commendable “retrenchment.” Nathan grew to abhor the word. At such times as the father succeeded in his policy and the boy was humiliated and stopped, Johnathan waved his hand grandly and said: “You see! Some day you will grasp that your father is older and therefore must know better!” To beat Nathan and get his word doubted or his ability discounted among employees or stockholders pleased Johnathan more than declaring a twelve per cent dividend. Nathan had flouted his father, deliberately plunged into matrimony in spite of all his father’s threats and admonitions. He had made his bed. Now let him lie in it. But in addition, Johnathan, as the mocked parent, intended to see that the bed was as hard, knotty and acanaceous as the father knew how to make it.