Again he stared into
Main Street. Tom Butterworth went out at the front door. He wanted to be by
himself and think his own thoughts. Gordon Hart returned to the empty back
room and standing by a window looked out into an alleyway. His thoughts
ran in the same channel as those that played through the mind of the bank
president. He also thought of men who wanted to buy stock in the company
that was doomed to failure. He began to doubt the judgment of Hugh McVey
in the matter of failure. "Such fellows are always pessimists," he told
himself. From the window at the back of the bank, he could see over the
roofs of a row of small sheds and down a residence street to where two
new workingmen's houses were being built. His thoughts only differed from
the thoughts of John Clark because he was a younger man. "A few men of
the younger generation, like Steve and myself will have to take hold of
things," he muttered aloud. "We'll have to have money to work with. We'll
have to take the responsibility of the ownership of money."
At the front of the bank John Clark puffed at his cigar. He felt like a
soldier weighing the chances of battle. Vaguely he thought of himself as
a general, a kind of U. S. Grant of industry. The lives and happiness of
many people, he told himself, depended on the clear working of his brain.
"Well," he thought, "when factories start coming to a town and it begins to
grow as this town is growing no man can stop it.
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