“No,” said Ray, thinking what a good situation the predicament would be, in a story. “If they had taken my novel, and published an edition of fifty thousand, I don’t see how it could have reduced a single author to penury. But I don’t believe I could resist the advances of a publisher, even if I knew it might throw authors out of work right and left. I could support their families till they got something to do.” “Yes, you might do that, Ansel,” his wife suggested, with a slanting smile at him. “I only hope we may have the opportunity. But probably it will be as hard to get a process accepted as a book.” “That hasn’t anything to do with the question,” Denton broke out. “The question is whether a man ought not to kill his creative thought as he would a snake, if he sees that there is any danger of its taking away work another man lives by. That is what I look at.” “And father,” said Mrs. Denton, whimsically, “is so high-principled that he won’t let us urge on the millenium by having pandemonium first. If we were allowed to do that, Ansel might quiet his conscience by reflecting that the more men he threw out of work, the sooner the good time would come. I don’t see why that isn’t a good plan, and it would work in so nicely with what we want to do. Just make everything so bad people cannot bear it, and then they will rise up in their might and make it better for themselves. Don’t you think so, Mr. Ray?” “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. All this kind of thinking and feeling, which was a part and parcel of these people’s daily life, was alien to his habit of mind. He grasped it feebly and reluctantly, without the power or the wish to follow it to conclusions, whether it was presented ironically by Mrs. Denton, or with a fanatical sincerity by her husband. “No, no! That won’t do,” Denton said. “I have tried to see that as a possible thoroughfare; but it isn’t possible. If we were dealing with statistics it would do; but it’s men we’re dealing with: men like ourselves that have women and children dependent on them.” “I am glad to hear you say that, Ansel,” Peace said, gently. “Yes,” he returned, bitterly, “whichever way I turn, the way is barred. My hands are tied, whatever I try to do. Some one must be responsible. Some one must atone. Who shall it be?” “Well,” said Mrs. Denton, with a look of comic resignation, “it seems to be a pretty personal thing, after all, in spite of father’s philosophy. I always supposed that when we came into the world we should have an election, and vote down all these difficulties by an overwhelming majority.” Ray quoted, musingly: “The world is out of joint:--O cursed spite! That ever I was born to set it right!” “Yes? Who says that?” “Hamlet.” “Oh yes. Well, I feel just exactly as Ham does about it.”