“Morgan, humph!”
“The trouble isn’t with Morgan, but with you. What do you do with your nights? Study? study? beat your brains for ideas? No, you go home, tired, play with the children, talk with the wife, smoke, go to bed. It’s a beautiful life, but it’s not a money-making life. You can’t make money by working eight hours a day for another man’s money. You’ve got to get out and find it or dig it up.
“That business with the old hull put me on my feet, put dreams in my head. I looked about for other chances, took some of them and wished I hadn’t. But I kept on trying. The war in Europe came. The world was crazy for ships. They couldn’t build ’em fast enough to keep ahead of the submarines. On the Great Lakes there was a big steamer not doing much work. I heard of her. I went up and saw her. The job was to get her to the ocean. I managed it on borrowed money, bought her, and brought her up the Saint Lawrence to the sea––and down to New York. I made a fortune on that deal. Then did I retire and smoke my pipe of peace? No. I looked for another chance.
“When our country went into the war she needed ships of her own. She had to have shipyards first to build ’em in. My lifelong ambition was to make ships from the keel-plate up. I looked for the best place to put a shipyard, picked on this spot because other people hadn’t found it. My partners and I got the land cheap because it was swamp. We worked out our plans, sitting up all night over blue-prints and studying how to save every possible penny and every possible waste motion.
“And now look at the swamp. It’s one of the prettiest yards in the world. The Germans sank my Clara. Did I stop or go to making speeches about German vampires? No. I went on building.
“The Germans tried to get my next boat. I fought for her as I’ll fight the Germans, the I. W. W., the Bolshevists, or any other sneaking coyotes that try to destroy my property.
“I lost this right arm trying to save that ship. And now that I’m crippled, am I asking for a pension or an admission to an old folks’ home? Am I passing the hat to you other workers? No. I’m as good as ever I was. I made my left arm learn my right arm’s business. If I lose my left arm next I’ll teach my feet to write. And if I lose those, by God! I’ll write with my teeth, or wigwag my ears.
“The trouble with you, Iddings, and the like of you is you brood over your troubles, instead of brooding over ways to improve yourself. You spend time and money on quack doctors. But I tell you, don’t fight your work or your boss. Fight nature, fight sleep, fight fatigue, fight the sky, fight despair, and if you want money hunt up a place where it’s to be found.”
If Iddings had had brains enough to understand all this he would not have been Iddings working by the day. His stubborn response was: