"Because the mere question of dollars and cents interests him so little."
"Ah! You have been employing him lately, I believe?"
"Yes. I like to throw what I can in his way. He understands his business. We lunched together this morning. I enjoy his humor, his independence and his common sense, and at the same time his enthusiasm."
"Concerning what?"
"Most things except the price of railroad shares and the condition of the money market. We didn't refer to them once." Paul paused with a serio-comic sigh. Mr. Howard knocked the white ash from his cigar and responded:
"One of the reasons for sending you to college was that you need not be confined in your conversation to the money market. Another that you should be free in life to do as you chose."
"Don't be alarmed, father. You know well enough that nothing would induce me not to follow your lead. Give up business? I couldn't. I love the power and excitement of it. It's bred in the bone, I suppose."
The banker's eyes kindled with pride in the son of his heart.
"And it's because I know I'm myself that a fellow like Don Perry fascinates me," pursued Paul. "There's no nonsense in him. He objects to cranks and mere psalm-singers as much as I do. But he's absorbed in the social problems of the day—legislative questions, philanthropic questions, all the burning questions. 'And your young men shall see visions.' He is one of them. You will notice that I have not forgotten my Bible altogether, father."
"We have, and to burn, reformers who see visions and proclaim them from platforms which have no underpinnings. What we need are reformers who will study and think before they speak, and not seek to destroy the existing structure of society before they have provided a serviceable substitute."