Sometimes Uncle Henry takes bricks and sometimes sand.
He says it is a great responsibility to feel oneself
answerable for the safety of a whole barge-full of bricks
or sand. It is quite different from what he did in the
German navy, because there it was only a question of the
sailors and for most of the time, as I have heard Uncle
William and Uncle Henry say, we had plenty of them, but
here with bricks and sand it is different. Uncle Henry
says that if his barge was wrecked he would lose his job.
This makes it a very different thing from being a royal
admiral.

But Uncle William all through the last three months has
failed first at one thing and then at another. After all
his plans for selling pictures had come to nothing he
decided, very reluctantly that he would go into business.
He only reached this decision after a great deal of
anxious thought because, of course, business is a
degradation. It involves taking money for doing things
and this, Uncle William says, no prince can consent to
do. But at last, after deep thought, Uncle said, "The
die is cast," and sat down and wrote a letter offering
to take over the presidency of the United States Steel
Corporation. We spent two or three anxious days waiting
for the answer. Uncle was very firm and kept repeating,
"I have set my hand to it, and I will do it," but I was
certain that he was sorry about it and it was a great
relief when the answer came at last--it took days and
days, evidently, for them to decide about it--in which
the corporation said that they would "worry along" as