Henry, now, was sitting dejectedly on a work-bench.
'Hump—please!—you don't know how I feel. I——'
'And,' replied the senior partner, 'I don't care. I don't care how I feel, either. We either save the paper this week or we don't. That's what I care about right now.'
'I—I won't let you sell your things, Hump.' An unconvincing assertion, from the limp figure on the bench.
'You?' Humphrey stared at him with something near contempt—stared at the moustache and the cane. 'You? You won't let me?... For God's sake, shut up!'
With which he went out, slamming the door.
For a time Henry continued to sit there. Then he dragged himself upstairs, went to his bookcase and got the book entitled Will Power and Self Mastery.
He turned the pages until he hit upon these paragraphs:—'Every machine, every cathedral, every great ship was a thought before it could become a fact. Build in your brain.
'Through the all-enveloping ether drifts the invisible electricity that is all life, all energy. Open yourself to it. Make yourself a conductor. Stupidity and fear are resistants; cast these out. Make your brain a dynamo and drive the world.'
This seemed a good idea.