his mahogany desk... "tell them to get this, that I'm the boss 'round here and what I say goes. I'll do the thinking for the lot of 'em, and they'll do the work."

Norton really believed that he always played fair with his men, and when they rebelled he was sincere in regarding them as ungrateful and disloyal.

"Loyalty," he would say, "means the willingness of a workman to come through with a full day's work for a full day's pay, and to work harder than that when the welfare of his concern demands it. When he isn't loyal like that he's biting the hand that feeds him, and God a'mighty hates a snake!"

There were rumblings throughout the plant before the war which annoyed but did not disturb Norton, and when these disappeared in the patriotic fervor which swept through every stratum in every community he was completely deceived. He honestly believed that at last the workmen in his factory not only recognized their obligation to capital, but that in so doing they served their own best interests. Never was he so tireless in his own personal efforts; never so demanding of his men; never so successful in accomplishing the maximum translated into terms of production. As an added happiness, his son had at last done something which pleased him, . . . his own son, Richard, had been among the first to throw down his tools and enlist to fight for America's ideals. Henry Cross had no son to send, so Norton felt that he had scored again on his vituperative adversary.

. .

The military experience Richard would get would surely make a man of him. Not that James Norton

had any special complaint to make of his son's conduct before the war, except that he was the only one who ever dared to differ with him. This, Norton contended, was simply an expression of youth and inexperience. To cure him of both these diseases Richard had been put at work in overalls with the men, and it had been Norton's intention to keep him there until he "grew up," . . . which was another way of saying, "until he learns to agree with his father." Then Fate stepped in and took Richard from his job, transferred him over-seas, and placed him under the tyrant War, . . . the sternest master in the world. When Richard returned, Norton confidently assured himself, the boy would have learned his lesson, and the necessity of further labor in the shops might be removed. In James Norton's heart was an unspoken yearning to have his son shoulder to shoulder with him in the administration of the business, an affection for the boy which he never let him know, an unexpressed desire to shift onto younger shoulders some of the business load he had carried alone for so many years.

Then, after a quarter century of success as measured by the ability to have his own way, the world began to rock. Wages went up, not five or ten per cent., but forty, fifty, sixty per cent. This in itself was not so important while every advance could be passed on to the consumer, but Norton knew what this increase would do to the morale of the men, and his apprehensions grew.

"Workmen can't stand getting what they want," he emphasized to his Board of Directors; "they can't

stand prosperity. Keep 'em lean, with wrinkles in their bellies, and they will work instead of talk, and that saves a lot of trouble."

With the demand for labor so much in excess of the supply, Norton was forced to make compromises during the months which preceded Richard's return, but he bided his time and awaited his opportunity to put the workmen back into their proper place. What surprised him was that the ex-service men who returned to their old positions after demobilization were the least tractable. They should have learned from their army experience the lesson of absolute and immediate obedience to the orders of their superiors. But when Richard came home he would know how to handle them.

IV

With Richard's home-coming James Norton's philosophy of life received still another jolt. The boy insisted upon thinking for himself and acting upon his own conclusions. Previously Richard might have sputtered over his father's arbitrary decisions, but he always accepted them. Now he listened respectfully and then calmly advanced his own opinions, with apparently no idea that such independence was rebellion. When James Norton advised him of the decision to transfer him from the works to the office, Richard not only showed no appreciation of the concession, but actually declined it.

"I'll be no good anywhere for a while,” he explained; "but I'll do better in a job where I have to work hard with my hands."

His father might have been satisfied if Richard had confined his labor to that of his hands, but during the months since his return Norton found that the young man's head had never for a moment ceased to function. Richard was changed, and for the worse, his father reluctantly but emphatically concluded. The boy's ideas had become fixed and he was as stubborn as a mule. He refused to quarrel with his father, but made no effort to conceal his entire disapproval of the type of management which to the older man was second nature. Why should his own son turn against him and take the side of the men? They were quite competent to present their own brief. And as for Richard's arguments... they were actually socialistic! What annoyed Norton most was the expression left on Richard's face at the termination of every discussion. When others disagreed with James Norton they made a point of concealing it, but Richard's disapproval was written all over him. The two men had ceased to speak the same language, and their sole remaining community of interest was gone.

"All right, father," Richard said wearily at the conclusion of one of these "scenes," "let's let it go at that. I can't make you see things my way and I can't agree with you. You have built blinders over your eyes and you can't look through them. Some day the men will take things into their own hands and tear those blinders off."

"They will if they can," Norton retorted; "you may be sure of that. But they have tried it before and I'm And that job is to demand from the

still on my job.

workmen what they owe in exchange for what I give them."

"You don't ask enough of them at that," Richard surprised his father by saying; "you ask too little of their heads. You not only don't ask them to think but you won't let them."

"Of course I won't

I knew there was some catch in that remark. If a workman thinks one thing he'll think another, and the first thing you know he'll get his thoughts centered on our profits and his wages. Then he'll demand more money."

"That's what he's thinking about now," Richard insisted; "you can't stop it. Give him something about his job to use his thinkers on and get his mind off the things you don't want him to think about."

Norton regarded his son steadily for a moment. Then his face assumed that expression which Richard dreaded.

"You and the other fellows who went into service have come home with the idea that you know it all, haven't you? I thought you would learn obedience and respect for the experience and knowledge of your superiors. Far from it you all know how to run this business better than I do after forty years in the shafts. Why don't you apply some of the army discipline to business instead of being insubordinate and pigheaded? How much thinking did they ever let you do in the army?"

Richard smiled in spite of his mood as the question recalled certain episodes in France where the American army, raised over night and put into action before