ABSTRACT
The saving in brass air alone, gathered up from in front of the men’s mouths, paid for the machines. One can talk with them for hours, for days at a time, about their business—some of them, without being able a single time to corner them into being decent or into admitting that they care about anybody. The business men of the bigger type who let themselves talk in this tone to-day, do not mean it; they are letting themselves be insensibly drawn into the tone of the men around them. Except for a few moments a year he never caught up. Nobody ever saw that boy and his long shoes when he was not butting bravely about, stubbing his toes on the world and turning up his sleeves.
