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One virtue of the restlessness of which Bailly had reminded him was its power to swing George's mind for a time from his unpleasant understanding with Dalrymple. It had got even into Blodgett's blood.
"About the honestest man I can think of these days," he complained to George one morning, "is the operator of a crooked racing stable. All the cards are marked. All the dice are loaded. If they didn't have to let us in on some of the tricks, we'd go bust, George, my boy."
"You mean we're crooked, too?" George asked.
"Only by infection," Blodgett defended himself, "but honest, George, I'd sell out if I could. I'm disgusted."
George couldn't hide a smile.
"In the old days when you were coming up, you never did anything the least bit out of line yourself?"
Blodgett mopped his face with one of his brilliant handkerchiefs. His eyes twinkled.
"I've been shrewd at times, George, but isn't that legitimate? I may have made some crowds pretty sick by cutting under them, but that's business. I won't say I haven't played some cute little tricks with stocks, but that's finesse, and the other fellow had the same chance. I'm not aware that I ever busted a bank, or held a loaded gun to a man's head and asked him to hand over his clothes as well as his cash. That's the spirit we're up against now. That's why Papa Blodgett advises selling out those mill stocks we kept big blocks of at the time of the armistice."
"They're making money," George said.
Blodgett tapped a file of reports.
"Have you read the opinions of the directors?"
"Yes," George answered, "and at a pinch they might have to go into coöperation, but they'd still pay some dividends."
Blodgett puffed out his cheeks.
"You're sure the unions would want a share in the business?"
"Why not?" George asked. "Isn't that practical communism?"
"Hay! Here's a fellow believes there's something practical in the world nowadays! Sell out, son."
"Then who would run our mills?"
"Maybe some philanthropist with more money than brains."
"You mean," George asked, "that our products, unless conditions improve, will disappear from the world, because no one will be able to afford to manufacture them?"
Blodgett pursed his lips. George stared from the window at the forest of buildings which impressed him, indeed, as giant tree trunks from which all the foliage had been stripped. Had there been awakened in the world an illiberal individuality with the power to fell them every one, and to turn up the system out of which they had sprung as from a rich soil? Was that what he had helped fight the war for?
"You're talking about the dark ages," he said, feeling the necessity of faith and stability. "Sell your stocks if you want, I choose to keep mine."
Blodgett yawned.
"We'll go down together, George. I won't jump from a sinking ship as long as you cling to the bridge."
"The ship isn't sinking," George cried. "It's too buoyant."