he felt it was his duty to the store to play the game according
to the established rules. He was borne along on a roaring spate
of conferences, telephone calls, appointments, Rotarian lunches,
Chamber of Commerce dinners, picnics to talk tariff,
house-parties to discuss demurrage, tennis tournaments to settle
the sales-tax, golf foursomes to regulate price-maintenance. Of
all these matters he knew nothing whatever; and he also saw that
as far as the business of Beagle and Company was concerned it
would be better not to waste his time on such side-issues. The
way he could really be of service was in the store itself,
tactfully lubricating that complicated engine of goods and
personalities. But he learned to utter, when called upon, a few
suave generalities, barbed with a rollicking story. This made him
always welcome. He was of a studious disposition, and liked to
examine this queer territory of life with an unprejudiced eye.
After all, his inward secret purpose had nothing to do with the
success or failure of retail trade. He was still seeking a
horizon that would stay blue when he reached it.

More and more he was interested to perceive how transparent the
mummery of business was. He was interested to note how
persistently men fled from success, how carefully most of them
avoided the obvious principles of utility, honesty, prudence, and
courtesy, which are inevitably rewarded. These sagacious,
humorous fellows who were amusing themselves with twaddling trade
apothegms and ridiculous banqueteering solemnities, surely they
were aware that this had no bearing upon their own jobs? He
suspected that it was all a feverish anodyne to still some inward
unease. Since they must (not being fools) be aware that these
antics were mere subtraction of time from their business, the