"I know you don't," she continued, "you do it so unconsciously. That's why I'm so sure he has a real place in the deep unconscious part of you. He worries you. He gets you to think you've no right to be happy!" There was a bitterness in her voice that I had never heard before. "I believe in helping people--of course--whenever I get a chance," she said. "But I don't believe in this--I hate it! It's simply an insane attempt to pull every good thing down! It's too awful even to think of!" "We're not going to," I told her. "I'm sorry for Joe and I wish I could help him out of his hole. But I can't--it's too infernally deep. He won't listen to any talk from me--and as long as he won't I'll leave him alone. It's hideous enough--God knows. But if I ever tackle poverty and labor and that sort of thing it'll be along quite different lines." The door-bell rang. "Oh Billy," she said, "I forgot to tell you. Father's coming to dinner to-night." I looked at her a moment: "Did you ask him here on my account?" Eleanore smiled frankly. "Yes--I thought I might need him," she said. I did not talk to her father of Joe--his plans for a strike were his secret, not mine. But with Eleanore pushing me on, I described the hell I had seen in the stokehole. "You're right, it's hell," her father agreed. "But in time we'll do away with it." "I knew it," Eleanore put in. "How?" I asked. "By using oil instead of coal. Or if we can't get oil cheap enough by automatic stokers--machines to do the work of men." I thought hard and fast for a moment, and suddenly I realized that I had never given any real thought to matters of this kind before. "Then what will become of the stokers?" I asked him. "One thing at a time." I caught Dillon keenly watching me over his cigar. "Don't give up your faith in efficiency, Bill. If they'll only give us time enough we'll be able to do so much for men." There was something so big and sincere in his voice and in his clear and kindly eyes. "I'm sure you will," I answered. "If you don't, there's nobody else who can." In a week or two, by grinding steadily on at my work and by a few more quiet talks with Eleanore and her father, I could feel myself safely back on my ground. * * * * * But one morning Sue broke in on me. "I've just heard from a friend of Joe Kramer's," she said, "that he is dangerously ill. And there's no one to look after him. Hadn't you better go yourself?" "Of course," I assented gruffly. "I'll go down at once." It seemed as though the Fates and Sue were in league to keep Joe in my life.