There were two avenues open along which Rod could saunter to exercise this detached observance of his own people: the homes which automatically opened to him, and brief daily contacts with men downtown. Socially things seemed a little more feverish, people just a trifle keener in the futile pursuit of futile diversion, the dancing just a little more frankly sensuous, the drinking a little freer, the talk looser. If one couldn't or wouldn't keep the pace one was "slow." It amused Rod and it vaguely troubled him. These people seemed so remote from so many things of importance that pressed close on them, matters that constituted both a warning and a threat. Downtown it was worse. Uptown rested on downtown. The economic link--the strongest link in the invisible chain--shackled them together whether they knew it or not. And downtown was frankly on the make, with the most shrewd and far-seeing already privately dubious about a let-down in the swift flow of affairs that followed the close of European hostilities. Perhaps it had always been the same. He had not been aware how consistently material, how harshly practical, the world of commerce must be. But he couldn't get used to hearing them tot up Canada's share in the reparations, the gloating on what enlarged African and Asiatic possession meant to trade, their chesty pride in having swept the Hun from the seas (as if they had done it in their office chairs). He couldn't get used to that, because it was invariably accompanied by an undertone of growling about confiscatory taxation, enormous pension bills. Here and there some elderly hardshell solemnly viewed with alarm three items debited to the war: first, the growing demand of labor for shorter hours, increased pay, and a voice in the conduct of industries for which they furnished the motive power; second, the Bolshevik upheaval in Russia which constituted a horrific menace to the sacred rights of private property; third, the military strength and insistent demands of France. The war as a business proposition! Rod got up and walked away from a group of men in a club who rather vindictively discussed these important phases of the European _débâcle_. If that were all--commerce--shipping--iron--coal--territory--indemnities. If that were all! His heart wouldn't stand his talking to those bankers and merchants and manufacturers and brokers as he wished to talk. He left them. What was held as piracy and brigandage for the individual became somehow the unchallenged privilege of a nation, if only the scale of operations were large enough. The Barbary corsairs were at least open in their deeds. They flew the Jolly Roger and their victims walked the plank without ado. Nor did the pirates get their fighting done by proxy and then grumble because they found it expensive.