“Sorry I kept you so long. Come into my room a minute.” I followed him, and he sat down beside me. He had carefully considered his plan. “I've had a hard battle,” he said. “War is war, whether you fight with guns or money. Here in Wall Street we cut close to the heart sometimes, but we don't kill, and we don't try to make ourselves believe that God is on either side--at least, nobody but Uncle Dan'l, and, you know, he builds a church whenever he grabs a million as a reward to Providence. We're like a lot of soldiers. We take what we can get, and when we're surrounded we cut our way out if we can. Do you like Albany?” He smiled as he put the question. “Very much,” was my answer. “Well, I don't,” said he. “I'm going to keep away from there, and so are my friends. It's full of temptations. Think of that bargain counter! There's nothing like it in the world. I never saw such an array of jewelry, and all so cheap!” We laughed, and I left him, and thought of the wise, far-seeing gentleman who had sent me there. I thought, too, of the long war of the Rebellion, and of all that its years of slaughter and pillage had cost us--a loss of respect for sacred things, which was, somehow, signalized in the character of Colonel Fisk, to whom business was war and property the prize of battle. I had other things to do, and when I walked up Broad Street, in the early evening, the banks were all open and the Street crowded, and I saw numbers of men who had been rich that morning sitting dejectedly on the curb together eating sandwiches, and among them was Bony. That night I heard General Hampton say, in the lobby of the St. Nicholas, that there would have been no war if our railroads had run north and south instead of east and west, and it was true. There was a great awakening in the land. It was the age of invention. Hundreds of corporations, with millions behind them, joined the armies of steam-power and marched upon the capitals demanding favor. Enthusiasm ran high. Many a captain forgot other considerations in thinking of the greatness of his cause. They did much harm, but they were building the pyramids for us and our children forever, and we may say now, as we gather the fruit of their toil: Poor fellows! how little time was given them in which to regret or enjoy the things they did! After all, we can afford to repair the evil for the sake of the good. I thank God that I have lived to see the harnessing of the swift horses of Niagara, and the great earth laced with streams of power that turn night into day and day into immeasurable service. End of Project Gutenberg's The Hand-Made Gentleman, by Irving Bacheller