Edward Warner was eight years older than Hal; the perfect type of the young American business man. His figure was erect3 and athletic4, his features were regular and strong, his voice, his manner, everything about him spoke5 of quiet decision, of energy precisely6 directed. As a rule, he was a model of what the tailor's art could do, but just now there was something abnormal about his attire7 as well as his manner.
Hal's anxiety had been increasing all the way up the street. “What's the matter with Dad?” he cried.
“Dad's all right,” was the answer—“that is, for the moment.”
“Then what—?”
“Peter Harrigan's on his way back from the East. He's due in Western City to-morrow. You can see that something will be the matter with Dad unless you quit this business at once.”
Hal had a sudden reaction from his fear. “So that's all!” he exclaimed.
His brother was gazing at the young miner, dressed in sooty blue overalls8, his face streaked9 with black, his wavy10 hair all mussed. “You wired me you were going to leave here, Hal!”
“So I was; but things happened that I couldn't foresee. There's a strike.”
“Yes; but what's that got to do with it?” Then, with exasperation11 in his voice, “For God's sake, Hal, how much farther do you expect to go?”
Hal stood for a few moments, looking at his brother. Even in a tension as he was, he could not help laughing. “I know how all this must seem to you, Edward. It's a long story; I hardly know how to begin.”
“No, I suppose not,” said Edward, drily.
And Hal laughed again. “Well, we agree that far, at any rate. What I was hoping was that we could talk it all over quietly, after the excitement was past. When I explain to you about conditions in this place—”
But Edward interrupted. “Really, Hal, there's no use of such an argument. I have nothing to do with conditions in Peter Harrigan's camps.”
The smile left Hal's face. “Would you have preferred to have me investigate conditions in the Warner camps?” Hal had tried to suppress his irritation12, but there was simply no way these two could get along. “We've had our arguments about these things, Edward, and you've always had the best of me—you could tell me I was a child, it was presumptuous13 of me to dispute your assertions. But now—well, I'm a child no longer, and we'll have to meet on a new basis.”
Hal's tone, more than his words, made an impression. Edward thought before he spoke. “Well, what's your new basis?”
“Just now I'm in the midst of a strike, and I can hardly stop to explain.”
“You don't think of Dad in all this madness?”
“I think of Dad, and of you too, Edward; but this is hardly the time—”
“If ever in the world there was a time, this is it!”
Hal groaned14 inwardly. “All right,” he said, “sit down. I'll try to give you some idea how I got swept into this.”
He began to tell about the conditions he had found in this stronghold of the “G. F. C.” As usual, when he talked about it, he became absorbed in its human aspects; a fervour came into his tone, he was carried on, as he had been when he tried to argue with the officials in Pedro. But his eloquence15 was interrupted, even as it had been then; he discovered that his brother was in such a state of exasperation that he could not listen to a consecutive16 argument.
It was the old, old story; it had been thus as far back as Hal could remember. It seemed one of the mysteries of nature, how she could have brought two such different temperaments17 out of the same parentage. Edward was practical and positive; he knew what he wanted in the world, and he knew how to get it; he was never troubled with doubts, nor with self-questioning, nor with any other superfluous18 emotions; he could not understand people who allowed that sort of waste in their mental processes. He could not understand people who got “swept into things.”
In the beginning, he had had with Hal the prestige of the elder brother. He was handsome as a young Greek god, he was strong and masterful; whether he was flying over the ice with sure, strong strokes, or cutting the water with his glistening19 shoulders, or bringing down a partridge with the certainty and swiftness of a lightning stroke, Edward was the incarnation of Success. When he said that one's ideas were “rot,” when he spoke with contempt of “mollycoddles”—then indeed one suffered in soul, and had to go back to Shelley and Ruskin to renew one's courage.
The questioning of life had begun very early with Hal; there seemed to be something in his nature which forced him to go to the roots of things; and much as he looked up to his wonderful brother, he had been made to realise that there were sides of life to which this brother was blind. To begin with, there were religious doubts; the distresses20 of mind which plague a young man when first it dawns upon him that the faith he has been brought up in is a higher kind of fairy-tale. Edward had never asked such questions, apparently21. He went to church, because it was the thing to do; more especially because it was pleasing to the young lady he wished to marry to have him put on stately clothes, and escort her to a beautiful place of music and flowers and perfumes, where she would meet her friends, also in stately clothes. How abnormal it seemed to Edward that a young man should give up this pleasant custom, merely because he could not be sure that Jonah had swallowed a whale!
But it was when Hal's doubts attacked his brother's week-day religion—the religion of the profit-system—that the controversy22 between them had become deadly. At first Hal had known nothing about practical affairs, and it had been Edward's duty to answer his questions. The prosperity of the country had been built up by strong men; and these men had enemies—evil-minded persons, animated23 by jealousy24 and other base passions, seeking to tear down the mighty25 structure. At first this devil-theory had satisfied the boy; but later on, as he had come to read and observe, he had been plagued by doubts. In the end, listening to his brother's conversation, and reading the writings of so-called “muck-rakers,” the realisation was forced upon him that there were two types of mind in the controversy—those who thought of profits, and those who thought of human beings.
Edward was alarmed at the books Hal was reading; he was still more alarmed when he saw the ideas Hal was bringing home from college. There must have been some strange change in Harrigan in a few years; no one had dreamed of such ideas when Edward was there! No one had written satiric26 songs about the faculty27, or the endowments of eminent28 philanthropists!
In the meantime Edward Warner Senior had had a paralytic29 stroke, and Edward Junior had taken charge of the company. Three years of this had given him the point of view of a coal-operator, hard and set for a life-time. The business of a coal-operator was to buy his labour cheap, to turn out the maximum product in the shortest time, and to sell the product at the market price to parties whose credit was satisfactory. If a concern was doing that, it was a successful concern; for any one to mention that it was making wrecks30 of the people who dug the coal, was to be guilty of sentimentality and impertinence.
Edward had heard with dismay his brother's announcement that he meant to study industry by spending his vacation as a common labourer. However, when he considered it, he was inclined to think that the idea might not be such a bad one. Perhaps Hal would not find what he was looking for; perhaps, working with his hands, he might get some of the nonsense knocked out of his head!
But now the experiment had been made, and the revelation had burst upon Edward that it had been a ghastly failure. Hal had not come to realise that labour was turbulent and lazy and incompetent31, needing a strong hand to rule it; on the contrary, he had become one of these turbulent ones himself! A champion of the lazy and incompetent, an agitator32, a fomenter33 of class-prejudice, an enemy of his own friends, and of his brother's business associates!
Never had Hal seen Edward in such a state of excitement. There was something really abnormal about him, Hal realised; it puzzled him vaguely34 while he talked, but he did not understand it until his brother told how he had come to be here. He had been attending a dinner-dance at the home of a friend, and Percy Harrigan had got him on the telephone at half past eleven o'clock at night. Percy had had a message from Cartwright, to the effect that Hal was leading a riot in North Valley; Percy had painted the situation in such lurid35 colours that Edward had made a dash and caught the midnight train, wearing his evening clothes, and without so much as a tooth-brush with him!
Hal could hardly keep from bursting out laughing. His brother, his punctilious36 and dignified37 brother, alighting from a sleeping-car at seven o'clock in the morning, wearing a dress suit and a silk hat! And here he was, Edward Warner Junior, the fastidious, who never paid less than a hundred and fifty dollars for a suit of clothes, clad in a “hand-me-down” for which he had expended38 twelve dollars and forty-eight cents in a “Jew-store” in a coal-town!
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1
bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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5
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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6
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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7
attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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9
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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exasperation
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| n.愤慨 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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13
presumptuous
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| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
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groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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consecutive
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| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
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temperaments
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| 性格( temperament的名词复数 )； （人或动物的）气质； 易冲动； （性情）暴躁 | |
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superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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distresses
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| n.悲痛( distress的名词复数 )；痛苦；贫困；危险 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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controversy
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| n.争论，辩论，争吵 | |
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animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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satiric
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| adj.讽刺的，挖苦的 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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paralytic
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| adj. 瘫痪的 n. 瘫痪病人 | |
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wrecks
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| n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 )；（事故中）遭严重毁坏的汽车（或飞机等）；（身体或精神上）受到严重损伤的人；状况非常糟糕的车辆（或建筑物等）v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 )；使（船舶）失事，使遇难，使下沉 | |
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incompetent
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| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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agitator
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| n.鼓动者；搅拌器 | |
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fomenter
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| 挑唆者，煽动者 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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punctilious
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| adj.谨慎的，谨小慎微的 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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expended
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| v.花费( expend的过去式和过去分词 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
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