“Oh, there isn’t any such thing as provincialism any more, is there?” asked Bruce amiably. “I haven’t sniffed anything of the sort in your city: you seem very metropolitan. The fact is, I’m a good deal of a hick myself!” Mills laughed with more fervor than the remark justified. Evidently satisfied of the intelligence and good nature of the Freemans’ guest, he began to discuss the effect upon industry of a pending coal strike. His hand went frequently to his mustache as he talked and the leg that he swung over his knee waggled nervously. He plunged into a discussion of labor, mentioning foreign market conditions and citing figures from trade journals showing the losses to both capital and labor caused by the frequent disturbances in the industrial world. He expressed opinions tentatively, a little apologetically, and withdrew them quickly when they were questioned. Bruce, having tramped through one of the coal fields where a strike was in progress, described the conditions as he had observed them. Mills expressed the greatest interest; the frown deepened on his face as he listened. “That’s bad; things shouldn’t be that way,” he said. “The truth of the matter is that we haven’t mastered the handling of business. It’s stupendous; we’ve outgrown the old methods. We forget the vast territory we have to handle and the numbers of men it’s necessary to keep in touch with. When my Grandfather Mills set up as a manufacturer here he had fifty men working for him, and he knew them all--knew their families, circumstances, everything. Now I have six hundred in my battery plant and don’t know fifty of them! But I’d like to know them all; I feel that it’s my duty to know them.” He shrugged his shoulders impatiently when Henderson’s sharp little laugh at the other end of the room broke in discordantly upon Bruce’s sympathetic reply to this. “Bud, how silly you are!” they heard Mrs. Mills saying. “But I don’t know what we’d do without you. You do cheer things up a bit now and then!” Mrs. Freeman effected a redistribution of the guests that brought Mrs. Mills and Bruce together. “Shep, you mustn’t monopolize Mr. Storrs. Give Connie a chance. Mr. Storrs is an ideal subject for you, Connie. Take him out on the terrace and put him through all your degrees.” And then to Bruce: “Mrs. Mills is not only our leading vamp but a terrible highbrow--reads all the queer stuff!” Shepherd Mills was not wholly successful in concealing his displeasure in thus being deprived of Bruce’s company. And noting this, Bruce put out his hand, saying: “That’s a deep subject; we shall have to tackle it again. Please don’t forget that we’ve left it in the air and give me another chance.”