He was relieved to find he could do this work, about which he had had many misgivings, as well as there was any need for it to be done. He was fortunate in the start in escaping all personal contact with Haviland, or his satisfaction with himself and his lot might have been less pronounced. The managing director had a genius for taking the very marrow out of a man's bones and the hope out of his heart. On principle he never respected those in his employ. He would probably have explained his attitude by saying it was impossible to respect men who were content to earn beggarly salaries of from fifteen to thirty-five dollars a week. Even at these prices it must be owned he contrived to surround himself by an uncommonly low grade of business intelligence. Perhaps he liked the contrast it offered to the vigorous grasp he always maintained on affairs. The clerks carried on their work in fear and trembling, conscious that at any moment Haviland might come out of the private office, purplefaced and furious over a trifling blunder, to lash them with sarcasms that cut like a knife,—or even worse, some poor devil would be summoned into the private office to explain; an utterly hopeless proposition, as Haviland could not sit quietly through an explanation. He made mistakes himself, but he refused to recognize the right of others to do so; at least he would not listen to their excuses. He complained continually that the clerks wasted his time, which he valued at a fabulous figure, but he would spend half a morning criticizing the mental equipment of a shaking, underfed, five-dollar-a-week man, and then dismiss him as if he were the scum of the earth,—a mere thing. John saw and heard a good deal that filled him with astonishment the first few weeks he spent in the office of Bliss, Haviland and Company, and he decided that Haviland was not a gentleman, and when he discussed his character with Alice at home of an evening he said a good many hard and bitter things, for they talked of him incessantly; he was the one topic in the homes of all the men in the office; he lowered the tone of their lives, and brought servility and fear into the lives of their wives and children. That John escaped insult, he attributed to luck; apparently there was no protection in the fact that he was earnest and conscientious. Gordon, the old bookkeeper, who had been with the firm forty years, was a model of industry and exactness, yet he was in hot water pretty much all the time when he was not in deep water and trembling for his position. To be sure Haviland had his own disappointments and his nerves were on edge most of the time. He was greedy of gain, but more greedy of fame,—or the irresponsible notoriety which he mistook for fame, and which was perhaps sweeter to him than a responsible fame would have been with its obligations, and he hated the directors, who seemed in league to limit him to a conservative business with reasonable profits.