The state of mind in which Justin had gone to take possession of the factory that bright November morning was as different in graduation from that present with him now as the single simply clear notes of the flute are from the twanging strings and blended diversity of a whole orchestra. Everything hinged on something else, and there was nothing that did not hinge on money. Amid the immense daily complications of enlarging the business was the nagging daily complication of keeping enough of a balance in the bank in spite of the continual outgo. Money came in lavishly at times, but the outgo had to be enormous; it was as the essential bread upon the waters that insured its own return a hundredfold. Materials can be bought with a leeway of credit, but “hands” must be paid off on Saturday night; there had been one Saturday when there had been what Leverich called “tall hustling” by him and Martin and Alexander, before those hands could be paid. Justin had thought of his backers as men of millions—with that easy, assured confidence one has in regard to the superficially known; the millions were in the concrete, solid and golden—a bottomless store in reserve. He had gradually come to realize that the millions were a fluctuant quality, running like quicksilver from side to side, here in one place, there in another, as the various needs of corporations called them. Both Martin and Leverich were past masters in the art of making a little butter cover many slices of bread; to have to appropriate money to cover an emergency was a daily expedient—the ability to do so ranked as a part of one’s assets. Lois could not understand why, when such large sales were being made, there were not larger returns now; the “business” seemed to swallow up everything, and more than all else her husband. To his luminous, excited brain, the different phases of trade passed and repassed as pictures in a lighted transparency, riveting an exhilarated attention; all else was in blurred darkness and must wait until after the show for recognition. He felt it inexpressibly tiresome and unkind of Lois to wish to engross him, when he was laboring for her welfare and the children’s.