He saw Eva start up the stairs and, knowing that she was going to have it out with Stephen, crammed his hat on his head and ran. But not fast enough. As he fled down the porch steps he heard a combative angry roar. Helen and Henry would eat their breakfast to a cheerful tune! And then another scream, more furious, on a higher note. Hell and damnation! There must be something wrong with the way that kid was treated to make life one perpetual warfare. But his father was as helpless to intervene as if he were bound and gagged. Well, he _was_ bound and gagged to complete helplessness about everything in his life and his children’s lives, bound and gagged by his inability to make money. Only men who made money had any right to say how things should go in their homes. A man who couldn’t make money had no rights of any kind which a white man was bound to respect--nor a white woman either. Especially a white woman. The opinion of a man who couldn’t make money was of no value, on any subject, in anybody’s eyes. The dignity of a man who could not make money--but why talk about non-existent abstractions? He had about as much dignity left him as a zero with the rim off. His after-breakfast dyspepsia began to roll crushingly over his personality as it always did for a couple of hours after each meal. His vitality began to ebb. He felt the familiar, terrible draining out of his will-to-live. At the thought of enduring this demoralizing torment that morning, and that afternoon, and the day after that and the day after that, he felt like flinging himself on the ground rolling and shrieking. Instead he pulled out his watch with the employee’s nervous gesture and quickened his pace. He was just then passing Dr. Merritt’s office. If only there was something the doctor could do to help him. But he’d tried everything. And anyhow, he understood perfectly that a man who doesn’t make money has no right to complain of dyspepsia--of anything. Illness only adds to his guilt.