"A strike," said Hawthorne. "We're loaded with contract orders, Mr. Foote. A strike at this time--" "Rangar," said Mr. Foote, sharply, "at the first sign of such a thing take immediate steps to counteract it.... Better still, proceed now as if a strike were certain. These mills MUST continue uninterruptedly.... If these malcontents force a strike, Mr. Hawthorne, we shall be able to deal with it.... Good morning, gentlemen." The men filed out silently. It seemed as if they were apprehensive, almost as if they ventured to disagree with the action of their employers. But none voiced his disapproval. Bonbright stood without motion beside his father's desk, his eyes on the floor, his lips pressed together. "There," said his father, with satisfaction, "I think that will set you right." "Right?... The men will think I was among them last night as a spy!... They'll despise me.... They'll think I wasn't honest with them." Bonbright Foote VI shrugged his shoulders. "Loyalty to your family," he said, "and to your order is rather more important than retaining the good will of a mob of malcontents." Bonbright turned, his shoulders dropping so that a more sympathetic eye than his father's might have found itself moistening, and walked slowly back to his room. He did not sit at his desk, but walked to the window, where he rested his brow against his hand and looked out upon as much of the world as he could see.... It seemed large to him, filled with promise, filled with interests, filled with activities for HIM--if he could only be about them. But they were held tantalizingly out of reach. He was safe in his groove; had not slipped there gradually and smoothly, but had been thrust roughly, by sudden attack, into it. His young, healthy soul cried out in protest against the affront that had been put upon it. Not that the issue itself had mattered so much, but that it had been so handled, ruthlessly. Bonbright was no friend to labor. He had merely been a surprised observer of certain phenomena that had aroused him to thought. He did not feel that labor was right and that his father was wrong. It might be his father was very right.... But labor was such a huge mass, and when a huge mass seethes it is impressive. Possibly this mass was wrong; possibly its seething must be stilled for the better interests of mankind. Bonbright did not know. He had wanted to know; had wanted the condition explained to him. Instead, he had been crushed into his groove humiliatingly. Bonbright was young, to be readily impressed. If his father had received his uncertainty with kindliness and had answered his hunger's demand for enlightenment with arguments and reasoning, the crisis probably would have passed harmlessly. His father had seen fit not to use diplomacy, but to assert autocratically the power of Bonbright Foote, Incorporated. Bonbright's individuality had thought to lift its head; it had been stamped back into its appointed, circumscribed place.