"Have you read the opinions of the directors?"
"Yes," George answered, "and at a pinch they might have to go into coöperation, but they'd still pay some dividends."
Blodgett puffed out his cheeks.
"You're sure the unions would want a share in the business?"
"Why not?" George asked. "Isn't that practical communism?"
"Hay! Here's a fellow believes there's something practical in the world nowadays! Sell out, son."
"Then who would run our mills?"
"Maybe some philanthropist with more money than brains."
"You mean," George asked, "that our products, unless conditions improve, will disappear from the world, because no one will be able to afford to manufacture them?"
Blodgett pursed his lips. George stared from the window at the forest of buildings which impressed him, indeed, as giant tree trunks from which all the foliage had been stripped. Had there been awakened in the world an illiberal individuality with the power to fell them every one, and to turn up the system out of which they had sprung as from a rich soil? Was that what he had helped fight the war for?