Presently he turned to his desk and wrote some personal letters--as a distraction. He did not know what else to do. There was nothing connected with the plant that he could set his hand to. It seemed to him he was just present, like a blank wall, whose reason for existence was merely to be in a certain place. He was conscious of voices in his father's room, and after a time his father entered and bade him a formal good morning. Bonbright was acutely conscious of his father's distinguished, cultured, aristocratic appearance. He was conscious of that manner which six generations of repression and habit in a circumscribed orbit had bestowed on Bonbright Foote VI. Bonbright was unconscious of the great likeness between him and his father; of the fact that at his father's age it would be difficult to tell them apart. Physically he was out of the Bonbright Foote mold. "Son," said Bonbright Foote VI, "you have made an unfortunate beginning here. You have created an impression which we shall have to eradicate promptly." "I don't understand." "It has been the habit of our family to hold aloof from our employees. We do not come directly into contact with them. Intercourse between us and them is invariably carried out through intermediaries." Bonbright waited for his father to continue. "You are being discussed by every man in the shops. This is peculiarly unfortunate at this moment, when a determined effort is being made by organized labor to force unionism on us. The men have the notion that you are not unfriendly toward unionism." "I don't understand it," said Bonbright. "I don't know what my feelings toward it may be." "Your feelings toward it," said his father with decision, "are distinctly unfriendly." Again Bonbright was silent. "Last evening," said his father, "you mingled with the men leaving the shops. You did a thing no member of our family has ever done--consented to an interview with a professional labor agitator." "That is hardly the fact, sir.... I asked for the interview." "Which is worse.... You even, as it is reported to me, agreed to talk with this agitator at some future time." "I asked him to explain things to me." "Any explanations of labor conditions and demands I shall always be glad to make. The thing I am trying to bring home to you is that the men have gotten an absurd impression that you are in sympathy with them.... Young men sometimes come home from college with unsound notions. Possibly you have picked up some socialistic nonsense. You will have to rid yourself of it. Our family has always arrayed itself squarely against such indefensible theories.... But the thing to do at once is to wipe out any silly ideas your indiscretion may have aroused among our workingmen." "But I am not sure--"