"
"Who is it gets the pay?" said Bibbs.
"Not I!" she laughed.
"Nobody gets it. There isn't any pay; there's only money. And only
some of the men down-town get much of that. That's what my father
wants me to get."
"Yes," she said, smiling to him, and nodding. "And you don't want it,
and you don't need it."
"But you don't think I'm a sleep-walker, Mary?" He had told her of
his father's new plans for him, though he had not described the vigor
and picturesqueness of their setting forth. "You think I'm right?"
"A thousand times!" she cried. "There aren't so many happy people
in this world, I think--and you say you've found what makes you happy.
If it's a dream--keep it!"
"The thought of going down there--into the money shuffle--I hate
it as I never hated the shop!" he said. "I hate it! And the city
itself, the city that the money shuffle has made--just look at it!
Look at it in winter. The snow's tried hard to make the ugliness
bearable, but the ugliness is winning; it's making the snow hideous;
the snow's getting dirty on top, and it's foul underneath with the
dirt and disease of the unclean street. And the dirt and the ugliness
and the rush and the noise aren't the worst of it; it's what the dirt
and ugliness and rush and noise MEAN--that's the worst! The outward
things are insufferable, but they're only the expression of a spirit--
a blind embryo of a spirit, not yet a soul--oh, just greed! And this
'go ahead' nonsense! Oughtn't it all to be a fellowship? I shouldn't
want to get ahead if I could--I'd want to help the other fellow to
keep up with me.
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