"All right," said Bob, rattling the cubes in their box and spreading them on the table with practised hand. "Beat that, my boy." Three fives, an ace and a four lay exposed. "My gin, I guess," Bob crowed. "Not while the old man keeps his strength," replied his friend. "Just peel your eye and watch this." He made the cast. A pair of fours was the result. "Oh, hell!" he said, not petulantly, not angrily, but as if it were a duty. He pushed the dice back, and the incident was closed; apparently he brushed it from his mind as he had brushed back the ivory cubes. "Say, I hear Bogel is going to reduce the price of his car a hundred dollars...." In Detroit in that day men could hazard seven thousand dollars on one cast of the dice without a quickened throb of the pulse. To those two the winning or losing of that sum was a trivial thing, a sort of matching of pennies. "Did you see that?" Potter asked of the major. "Yes," said Major Craig, staring unbelievingly. "Well, do you think our big men in Detroit are going to interest themselves in anything so dinky as a European war?... That's the attitude of mind that frightens me, Major. It's here; it's all about us. A big, ingrowing selfishness; the ability to squander and the will to squander.... Do you think those men give a tinker's dam about the United States or what happens to it so long as their ability to throw away thousands is left uninterfered with?" Major Craig frowned, did not reply at once, but presently said: "It's Gargantuan; the thing is so big that it almost wins itself dignity--this highflying of your city. I'm not sure it's so bad; it's more like boyishness.... There's nothing mean about it; it's big, and its bigness bespeaks big men. It's very American. No other nation could produce it.... No, Mr. Waite, I don't think this is the thing to worry us. There's something here, something tremendous, something of marvelous vitality--like an earthquake or Niagara. If it can be harnessed--put to use." Potter shook his head. "It will take a jar and a shock," the major said, "but I believe the day will come when America will thank God for your spenders, your high-rollers--when they wake up. There's an openness, an open-handedness, about them.... I believe they're _men_.... I believe they will realize what their country requires of them, and when they have come to realize it, the whole world will stand amazed at the things they do." Presently the major said: "I will make arrangements for the test of your motor. It will have to be sent on to us. I'll write you where and when."