Some of this extra money went to his workmen, and some to himself, and some to his customers, but it was largely spent, of course, in getting business for other manufacturers and in getting people to buy all over England, from other manufacturers, things that such people as they had never been able before to afford to buy.
All these things that I have been saying and which I have duly confided to the reader flashed through my mind as I stood with my back to the fire, realizing suddenly that the man who had done them was the man with whom I was talking.
Possibly some little thing was said. I do not remember what. The next thing I knew was that, with his five grown sons around him, he returned to his attack on his house.
He said some days he was glad it was so far away. He did not want his workmen to see it. He did not go to the mill often in his motor-car, not when he could help it.
I said that I thought that a man who was doing extraordinary things for other people, things that other men could not get time or strength or freedom or boldness of mind or initiative to do, that any particular thing he could have that gave him any advantage or immunity for doing the extraordinary things better, that would give him more of a chance to give other people a chance, that the other people, if they were in their senses, would insist upon his having these things.
"I think there are hundreds of men in my mill who think that they ought to have my motor-car and three or four rooms in this house."
"Are they the most efficient ones?"
If a man gives over to other people his deepest motives, and if he really identifies himself—the very inside of himself with them and treats their interests as his interests, the more money he has, the more people like it.