JABEZ, Rank blasphemy, sir. (Going up to Charlie, settling his collar irritably.) Don't talk to me as if I was a nonconformist.
CHARLIE. Nonconformist? No, you conform to everything. You began in a rut and you'll stay in the rut till you die.
JABEZ. A rut!
CHARLIE, Yes, the gutter where you poke in slime for sixpences, afraid to look up at God's blue sky or about you at your fellow-men lest some one else should pick up a sixpence while your head's turned. Oh, you conform right enough. You do nothing else. You conform to Success and Respectability, and they're the stronghold of the Devil.
JABEZ (recovering his temper, sitting down at desk and rubbing his hands genially, looking at John, laughing.) Sit down, Charlie.
CHARLIE. Thanks, I can say all I have to say standing.
JABEZ. Oh, but this is delightful. As good as a pantomime, isn't it, John? Go on, Charlie. It's amusing you and doing me no harm.
CHARLIE. Yes, that's the pity of it. It's doing you no harm. You'll have your dog's day. You'll go on accumulating the money you've no need of because you're in the grip of the money habit. You couldn't stop mobbing your impotent employés if you wanted to. The looting instinct's in your blood.
JABEZ (calmly.) I am doing what I conceive to be my duty, the duty of every man—to make as much as I can by honourable and business-like methods.
My father did it and his father before him. My son would do it if I had one.