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Reflections of Amma devotees in a global embrace 1994th
Edition Mata Amritanandamayi Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Mata Amritanandamayi, Amanda J. Lucia
ISBN(s): 9781306290661, 130629066X
Edition: 1994
File Details: PDF, 18.93 MB
Year: 2014
Language: english
Reflections of Amma
This page intentionally left blank
Reflections of Amma
Devotees in a Global Embrace

Amanda J. Lucia

university of california press

Berkeley • Los Angeles • London
University of California Press, one of the most
distinguished university presses in the United States,
enriches lives around the world by advancing
scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and
natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC
Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions
from individuals and institutions. For more informa-
tion, visit www.ucpress.edu.

University of California Press

Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England

© 2014 by The Regents of the University of California

Cataloging-in-Publication data is on the file with the

Library of Congress.

isbn 978-0-520-28113-4 (cloth : alk. paper)

isbn 978-0-520-28114-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Manufactured in the United States of America

22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In keeping with a commitment to support environmen-

tally responsible and sustainable printing practices,
UC Press has printed this book on Natures Natural,
a fiber that contains 30% post-consumer waste
and meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO
Z39.48-1992 (r 1997)(Permanence of Paper).
For Jonas and Zoe, whose hugs keep everything
in perspective
This page intentionally left blank
Contents

List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Note on Language xv

Introduction. Situating Amma as Female Guru in the

Context of North American Multiculturalism 1

1. A Darshan Embrace: Experiencing Authenticity

and Feeling Witnessed 37

2. Devī Bhāva: Revelation and Performance

of the Guru as Goddess 76

3. The Avatar-Guru and Ordinary Women: The Boundaries

of Mimetic Behavioral Models 107

4. Culturally Situated Testimonies: Differing Interpretations

of the Role of the Goddess 145

5. Congregational Dynamics: Growing Pains En Route

from the Particular to the Universal 182

Conclusion. Multiculturalism, Universalism, and Communal

Identity: The Guru in the American Diaspora 226

Appendix. Current Literature Engaging the Field

of Contemporary Gurus 241

Notes 251
Works Cited 279
Index 295
This page intentionally left blank
Illustrations

1. Mata Amritanandamayi Ashram, Parayakadavu (now Amritapuri),

Kollam district, Kerala, India / 9
2. Amma’s darshan embrace / 40
3. Devotees pray for world peace, Amma’s darshan program, Mata
Amritanandamayi Center Chicago (MACC), July 2012 / 47
4. Bhajans, Amma’s darshan program, Amritapuri, India, August
2012 / 49
5. An elderly Muslim man in Amma’s darshan embrace / 51
6. Amma doll (large), dressed in Devī Bhāva accoutrements / 63
7. Kali murti with Devī Bhāva accoutrements, Kali temple altar,
Amritapuri, India / 78
8. Padmavati performing vedic homa / 119
9. Eclectic altar, left to right: Pema Chödrön, Thai Buddha,
St. Francis of Assisi/St. Francis Peace Prayer, Amma, Mexican
clay fish, Rosary necklace / 158
10. Entry sign, MA Center Chicago, formally consecrated by Amma,
June 30, 2012 / 189
11. Paloma satsang youth group (bālā kendra) presents maple tree
saplings to Amma for her blessing as part of the GreenFriends
initiative to plant trees, Chicago, July 2009 / 192
12. “She is my Guadalupe.” Amma represented as the Virgin of
Guadalupe in a devotee’s tattoo / 194

ix
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgments

In 2006 I asked Amma directly if I might have her blessing to write my

dissertation on her and her movement. Amma seemed surprised and
playfully amused at first, and then with seriousness she said yes and en-
couraged me to read all of the books at the “bookstore” in the back of
the darshan hall. She then gave me a special sandalwood ṭīkā with the
ring finger of her right hand and her classic darshan embrace. Without
this gracious blessing, I would have been in a dilemma. While receiving
Amma’s blessing for my academic project would not have been of con-
sequence to many scholars (and for some it may even function detri-
mentally), for devotees it was all that mattered. Amma’s blessing be-
came a virtual passport that I carried with me throughout my fieldwork,
and for that I am most grateful.
Devotees invited me into their homes and their lives, embracing me
as friend, sister, auntie, and niece. I was consistently overwhelmed by the
warmhearted kindness of Balan, Lakshmi, Vinita, and Krishna, Molly
and Suresh, Manju and Praveen, Preet and Raman, Dhananjay and
Dhanashree, Jay and Sunitha, Latha and Harish, Pradeep and Reena,
Santosh and Bindu, Saveen and Sindhu, Milind and Meetali, Gulbinder
and Vinoo, Viji and Ramesh, Gangadhar and Madhusmita, Kasi and
Annam, Raj and Sudha, Alok and Lorena, Beena, Madhu, Mridula and
Sethu, and AYUDH (Amma’s youth group). Each taught me the mean-
ing of “satsang family.” Puneeta, Jayan, Eric, Gail, Hanuman, Shakti
Prasad, Barbara, Tanushree, Radha, Stevik, Kalavati, and Aaron were

xi
xii | Acknowledgments

exceptionally welcoming and taught me how to sing without shyness in

small groups of my peers. In later years I was consistently buttressed by
meaningful conversations with earnest devotees, too many to name here,
but I especially would like to thank Priya, Ron, Temba, Nirmalan,
Mithilesh, Renuka, Kathy and Linda, Lina, C. C., Shiva Rae, Sridhar,
Harsha, Rema Devi, Venilla, Neelima, Jodi, and Amma’s tour staff. I am
so thankful for the dozens of anonymous devotees who often shared their
most intimate feelings with a stranger with openness, patience, and lov-
ing kindness. I also owe a sincere debt of gratitude to the ashram staff at
Amritapuri and in San Ramon, in particular, Janani and Sachin for their
advice, guidance, and patient assistance with illustration permissions.
Last, I am most grateful for the assistance of Swami Amritaswarupananda
Puri, Swami Ramakrishnananda Puri, Br. Shantamrita, and, most signifi-
cantly, Br. Dayamrita Chaitanya, who graciously provided interviews
and logistical support.
In my earliest days of fieldwork, I tacked between devotional com-
munities in the Chicago suburbs and my academic home at the Univer-
sity of Chicago, where I relied on a wealth of expertise and support for
my research. Of those who were at the University of Chicago at that
time, I am indebted to Malika Zeghal, Catherine Brekus, Christian
Wedemeyer, Bruce Lincoln, Tanika Sarkar, Martin Riesebrodt, Dipesh
Chakrabarty, Rochona Majumdar, and Omar McRoberts, all of whom
offered significant suggestions and intellectual adjustments to my think-
ing. Steven Collins raised poignant questions over many long lunches
and coffees, for which I only now realize what a privilege that time was.
Similarly, Wendy Doniger has always shown unflagging support and
her own intellectual style of maternal care in pedagogy, letting me run
free and tightening the reins with impeccable pacing and only as needed,
as any good horsewoman would.
Before and after Chicago, I have been fortunate to be surrounded by
intellectual excellence in my colleagues, friends, and mentors, who have
all provided insights that I have incorporated into the text in various
forms. I would like to thank, in particular, David Haberman, Rebecca
Manring, James Hart, Pamela Winfield, Ron Mourad, Todd Penner, Hugh
Urban, Deepak Sarma, Peter Gottschalk, Hanna Kim, John Nemec,
David Shulman, Laurie Patton, Purushottama Bilimoria, Sheldon Pol-
lock, and Joanne Punzo Waghorne. At the University of California, Riv-
erside (UCR), I have gratefully accepted intellectual support from
and stimulating conversations with my colleagues, in particular, Viv-
ian Nyitray, Pashaura Singh, and Ivan Strenski. I also have benefited
 Acknowledgments | xiii

immensely from discussions that took place at the Institute for the Study
of Immigration and Religion at UCR and with my codirectors, Jennifer
Hughes and Michael Alexander. My cohorts and friends continue to assist
me in developing my thoughts; particular thanks go to Jen Sandler, Romi
Mukherjee, Lucas Carmichael, Benjamin Schonthal, and Jeremy Morse.
This book has benefited greatly from audience responses at the
American Academy of Religions (2012), the Society for the Anthro-
pology of Religion (2011), the University of Wisconsin, Madison, South
Asia Conference (2010), and the American Anthropological Association
(2009). In addition, invited presentations at the University of Chicago’s
conference “Hindus in India and America” (2010), the Art Institute of
Chicago (2011), and Asia Week at Austin College (2011) helped formu-
late my thoughts on Swami Vivekananda. Thoughtful engagement with
students at University of California, Riverside has improved the manu-
script, specifically in response to my graduate seminar on the North Ameri-
can encounter with religious “Others” and my undergraduate course “Gu-
rus and Saints,” wherein students raised intelligent questions that pushed
my own work further. I am grateful to Jessica Rehman for her logistical
assistance with final edits to the manuscript. The two anonymous re-
viewers at the University of California Press provided excellent sugges-
tions and careful commentary that made this book a much better
one; I thank them deeply for their very hard work. I am wholly grate-
ful for the staff at the University of California Press, particularly Lissa
Caldwell, Stacy Eisenstark, Michele Lansing, and Reed Malcolm, who
supported me throughout the publication process with vision and smart
professionalism. Of course, despite such insightful interventions and
careful commentary, I am wholly accountable for that which is pre-
sented herein.
In addition, I benefited from the financial support of the Divinity
School and the Committee on South Asian Studies at the University of
Chicago, the American Institute of Indian Studies, the Foreign Language
and Area Studies Program, and a UCR faculty research grant. Further-
more, I am deeply indebted to my friends and family whose personal
connections enabled me to complete my fieldwork. Debra Bernard gra-
ciously loaned me her house and her car so that I could conduct my
research at the San Ramon ashram. Mark Singleton offered to drive me
out to the Santa Fe ashram, and countless others facilitated my research
in wonderful and practical ways. I am also grateful to Ramu Pandit and
Max Katz, who first recounted their stories of Amma and encouraged
me to look into her movement in more detail.
xiv | Acknowledgments

I am forever grateful to my mother, who reads drafts when asked

and always (regardless) tells me that I am wonderful. This book would
not have been possible without her constant encouragement and her
child care support in the field (Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Amrita-
puri) and at home. I am fortunate to be enfolded in family across the
United States, all of whom encourage my work and offer loyalty, love,
and support, including my father, whose careful and patient ear on the
world of academe has become invaluable. But most of all I am indebted
to Andrew, who has suffered through my absences and picked up the
financial slack with patience and constancy. To my children, Jonas and
Zoe, who know much more about Hindus, gurus, and hugs than most
American children their age—may they grow up to know the purity and
power of unconditional love.
Note on Language

All quotations without correlative citations in this book derive from my

conversations and digitally recorded interviews with Amma devotees.
Three-quarters of my interactions in the field were conducted in English,
with the remaining quarter spliced between Hindi, Malayalam, and
“kitchery bhasha,” meaning a mixed language combining Hindi-English
or Malayalam-English. Sanskrit was the dominant devotional language
of scripture and prayer recitation. I was consistently grateful in the field
for my competency in Hindi, my ability to read and recite Sanskrit, and
my playful flirtation as an eager student of Malayalam, which encour-
aged many within the Malayalee devotional community to adopt my
language pedagogy as a pet project.
Nearly all of Amma’s literature and devotional materials are avail-
able in English. In fact, the majority of published materials are inten-
tionally made available in dozens of languages in an effort to increase
potential readership. In a similar effort to make this book more read-
able for audiences, I have eliminated diacritics for words that have
already been incorporated into the English language (e.g., guru, man-
tra, yoga). When referencing less frequently occurring Indic terms (e.g.,
iṣṭadev [favored deity]) and Sanskrit texts (e.g., Śrī Lalitā Aṣṭottara
Śatanāmāvali), I generally keep these words and phrases in italics with
diacritics in an effort to help readers with pronunciation. For Indic terms
more conventionally used in English, I have simply followed English plu-
ralization norms (e.g., gurus, mantras, bhajans).

xv
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction

Situating Amma as Female Guru

in the Context of North
American Multiculturalism

The Servant of Everyone

Do you ask why the sun shines, or the river flows?
It is Mother’s nature to love—her embrace
expresses that love.

An unbroken stream of love flows from Mother

to every being in the universe.

Mother does not give expecting

anything in return.

What nourishes Mother

is the happiness of her children.

Mother is the servant of everyone.

I have no home of my own—
I live in your hearts.1
—Messages from Amma

Varkalam, Kerala 1996

A hawkish young man approaches me on Varkalam beach in Kerala, a
premier tourist destination in South India. “Sah-un-gley-sses,” “Sah-un-
gley-sees,” he calls out in my direction, vigorously motioning to me. He
carries a stanchion that offers an array of sunglasses for purchase; he

1
2 | Introduction

wears a dynamic pair himself, modeling their fashion potential. I am an

easy target. My white skin gleams beneath my Indian clothing, which
does little to mask my status as a foreigner. I squint in the relentless
blazing sun, its shimmering reflection dancing on the waves of the In-
dian Ocean. As he draws near, I notice a smiling female visage dangling
about his neck, similar to the guru pendants that I have seen devotees
wear in North India. Before now, each pendant I have seen has been
the image of a male guru. Though I am away from my research among
Banarasi Hindu ascetics, I cannot resist asking him about the smiling
woman. He says simply, she is Amma, a local guru. He motions into the
distance and tells me that her very large and beautiful ashram is some-
where on the nearby horizon.
I coast through the next several days of lovely Kerala, relieved that
my seaside sanction is away from the commotion of the northern cities.
Before departing, I purchase a pocket-sized book with the same smiling
female visage on the cover that reads: For My Children: Spiritual Teach-
ings of Mata Amritanandamayi. Six months later, after interviewing
many dozens of Hindu ascetics in Banaras and in the Himalayan re-
gions, I carefully pack this small book in my duffel bag and head home
to the United States. From time to time, in curiosity, I take it off its shelf
and turn over in my mind its simple teachings of love and compassion.
Eight years after this first chance encounter, and despite the considerable
time I had spent among ascetics and gurus in India, I experienced Amma’s
darshan not in Kerala but in Naperville, Illinois.2

Naperville, Illinois 2004

Dusk is settling on throngs of bustling people, families with young chil-
dren, girlfriends arm in arm, and individuals of all shapes and sizes as
they shuttle between the glass and chrome doors opening the way into
the polished pristine lobby of the four-star hotel in the suburban Amer-
ican landscape. The doormen professionally mask their wonder as the
bright brocaded saris, scarves, kurtas, and eclectic flowing wardrobes
enliven the muted color palette of the wide hallways. The rich smells
endemic to South India (roses, curry, camphor, incense) overwhelm the
sterile atmosphere. Monitors vigilantly guard the lobby entrances to
make sure the largely barefoot crowd does not enter into the common
areas without shoes, a code violation that could impinge on the good
standing of Amma’s return to the same venue the following year. A to-
ken queue already stretches for hundreds of yards from the ballroom
 Introduction | 3

entrance, a wait necessary only for those who wish to receive darshan
tokens for the early hours of the program. Devotees’ long afternoon of
patient endurance will ensure them a full night of sleep. Attendees need
not wait in line if they plan to revel in the darshan atmosphere all night
long or plan to work doing sevā (selfless service) for the duration of the
program. They can also collect their darshan tokens after prayers for
world peace conclude the seated program and Amma begins to give her
darshan embraces. Although attendees are encouraged to get their dar-
shan tokens early, no one will be turned away.3
In time, these crowds settle into the ornately decorated and brilliantly
illuminated grand ballroom. Soon a conch shell blows, and then several
swamis (male ascetics) and one swamini (female ascetic) in ocher robes
ensure the path is clear as Amma enters the venue.4 These swamis begin
to intone the deep, lilting melodies of Sanskrit chants. Select lay devo-
tees stand in formation ready to perform the worship of the guru’s feet
(pada puja). Some are Indian Hindus and the rest are mostly white
Americans, though all have been instructed in the intricacies of this tra-
ditional Hindu ritual during their local satsangs (congregational gather-
ings). Additionally, they rehearsed their assigned roles with Amma’s
tour staff brahmacāriṇīs (ascetic disciples) earlier in the afternoon.5
Carefully, the devotees perform their practiced roles, dabbing Amma’s
feet with blessed water, sandalwood, kumkum powder, and rose petals.
She stands still in silent, closed-eye meditation. A devotee adorns her with
a heavy and perfumed garland of 108 fresh roses that he had crafted the
night before, mentally reciting his Sanskrit mantra as he threaded each
flower. Upon completion of the pada puja, Amma embraces several of
the officiants; their eyes are brimming with tears of delight. Amma and
her swamis then proceed to the stage. She centers herself, stands on the
edge of the stage, and blesses the entire audience. She then sits on a low
seat, cross-legged to begin a program consisting of spiritual addresses,
silent meditation, and impassioned devotional music. Often young chil-
dren accompany her on stage to sit with her. Their rambunctious and
playful squirming contrasts with her calm stillness.
As Amma and her musicians conclude their last fervent and emotive
notes of devotional praise, the nexus of the evening begins: Amma be-
gins to give hugs to every attendee present. Devotees patiently wait in
the darshan line, their anticipation rising as they slowly proceed toward
Amma over the course of two parallel rows of fifteen to twenty chairs,
until they reach her feet. In the special needs section, an older father
pushes his severely disabled son who is in an expensive wheelchair
Other documents randomly have
different content
“You’re right,” he said. “I can. And if it appears for any reason as I
can’t that thing ain’t no good and you can tear it up.”
It never occurred to him that the business had a fabulous aspect. He
took what John said at its face value. He could imagine no other way
of taking a friend’s word. And if it were unusual for a young puddler
to become a participating mill superintendent over night, so urgently
wanted that he must sign up before breakfast, that might be easily
explained. His friend, John Breakspeare, was an extravagant person,
very impulsive, with unexpected flashes of insight. Who else would
have known what Thane could do? Anyhow he had got the right
man to run the mill. Thane was sure of that. He supposed John was
sure of it, too.
John just then was sure of nothing. His one anxiety was to get
Thane and Agnes into some kind of going order. He was aware that
his motives were exceedingly complex and would not examine them.
He let himself off with saying it was his moral responsibility; he was
to blame for having got them into a dilemma that neither was able
to cope with. Yet all the time he was thrilled by what he did because
he was doing it for Agnes.
Thane’s artlessness about the contract was an instant relief. A fatal
difficulty might otherwise have arisen at that point. But it was also
very surprising. Was he so extremely naïve? Or had he such a notion
of his ability to conduct a mill as to think he would be worth five
thousand a year and one-tenth of the profits? Yes, that was the
explanation, John decided: and it gave him a bad twist in his
conscience to think how hurt and unforgiving Thane would be if he
knew the truth,—that he had signed a contract with a non-existent
company to superintend a mythical mill.
They ate a hearty breakfast, coming to it from a night in the open
air with no sleep at all. Although they talked very little they were
friendly under a truce without terms, all tingling with a sense of
plastic adventure. There was no telling what would come of it; but it
was exciting; and everything that happened was new.
Both Agnes and John had a surreptitious eye for the puddler’s
manners. They were not intrinsically bad or disgusting. They were
only fundamentally wrong. He delivered with his knife, took his
coffee from his saucer, modelled and arranged his food before
attacking it, cut all his meat at once, did everything that cannot be
done, and did it all with a certain finish. That is to say, he was a neat
eater, very handy with his tools, and cleaned up. He took pride in the
performance; his confidence in it was impervious. He was not in the
least embarrassed or uneasy. He did not wait to see what they did.
He did it his way and minded his own business.
Once John caught Agnes eyeing Thane aslant, and she stared him
down for it. He could not decide whether she was scandalized or
fascinated.
When they had finished Thane called for the reckoning and paid,
John politely protesting, Agnes looking somewhat surprised. After
that in all cases Thane paid for two and John paid for himself.
Instead of resting for a day in Wilkes-Barre they chose to go on by
train to Pittsburgh and arrived there in the middle of the afternoon.
John recommended a hotel where he was sure they could be quite
comfortable while deciding how they wished to live. He was
acquainted there. He would introduce them. In fact, it was where he
meant to lodge himself. So of course they all went together.
John managed the whole affair of settling them in their rooms, doing
it so tactfully, however, as to leave Thane with the sense of having
done it himself. When at last there was not another thing to be
thought of John held out his hand to Agnes, saying:
“Congratulations.”
This was subtle, wicked treachery, and in the act was a sting of
shame, yet her coolness was so audacious he could not resist the
temptation to try its depth. She took his hand and met his look with
steady eyes.
“Thank you,” she said. “May I share them with my husband?”
“No, don’t,” he said. “They are all his. I’m about to lose my wits.
Well, no matter.... Thane,”—turning to him,—“Mrs. Thane may want
to do some shopping. The best places are three blocks east. I’ll see
you in the morning. Or later, perhaps? There’s no hurry.”
“Tomorrow morning,” Thane answered.
They were standing in a group outside the Thanes’ rooms, loath to
break up, each for a different reason.
“I’m under the same roof, you know, if you should need me,” said
John.
“Thanks,” said Thane.
Still they lingered in a group.
“Have a bit of supper with us,” said Thane, suddenly.
“Not tonight,” said John. “We shall be too sleepy.”
Agnes was silent.
After a long pause, “Well,” said Thane, “this is Pittsburgh.”
John pensively nodded his head, and added, “Well.”
Agnes might have yawned. That would have produced the necessary
centrifugal impulse. Or she might have said something to have that
effect. But she was apparently sunk in thought.
After another long pause the two men shook hands in a hasty
manner and John walked rapidly down the hall. From the head of
the staircase he looked back. They were still there,—Agnes, her
hands behind her, leaning against the wall with her head thrown
back, gazing from afar at Thane, who stood in an awkward twist,
with one superfluous leg, looking away. His face was towards John,
and John waved his hand, but there was no response. The puddler
was staring at an invisible thing.
That last accidental glimpse of them left a vivid after-image in John’s
eyes. It stood there for hours like a transparent illusion. He walked
the sun down on a country road and still it was there. Returning, he
paced the streets until ten o’clock and it tortured him still. Coming
presently to a fine brick house, not very large, with a marble
fountain and small flower garden in front, he turned in. His feet
knew their way up the narrow walk and he pulled the bell knob with
the air of one to whom nothing unexpected is likely to happen. No
light was anywhere visible. The windows were hermetically
shuttered. Nor did his pull at the bell knob produce any audible
sound. Yet almost at once the door opened, revealing a brilliantly
lighted interior, and a servant in livery bowed him in. There was an
air of vulgar elegance about the hall. The servant did not speak.
Having offered to take the visitor’s hat, to which the visitor shook his
head, he opened a heavy door to the right and there came from
beyond it intermittent sounds of small clatter. The room John
entered was what had been the front drawing room. Back of it were
two more rooms, in a train to the depth of the house, all thrown
together by means of unfolded doors, so that the effect was of one
very long apartment, about thirty feet wide, laid with rich, deep
carpet on which the feet made not the slightest sound. The walls
were full of pictures, some of them good. There were several art
objects on pedestals, a great many nice chairs and some small
tables, like tea tables, evidently used for serving refreshments. On
one of these tables was a large humidor and on another a tray with
a cut glass service of decanters, goblets and ice bowl. That was all,
except down both sides of the first two rooms roulette wheels and in
the last room at the end three faro layouts.
Twenty or thirty men were betting at roulette, in groups of three or
four each. John passed them with a negligent, preoccupied air,
walking straight back.
No faro play was just then going on. At one layout sat a dealer in
that state of chilled ophidian tension characteristic of professional
gamblers in the face of their prey, and by none so remarkably
achieved as by the faro bank dealer, who drinks ice water without
warming it, who sees without looking, who speaks only under great
provocation and then softly, and whose slightest movement is
pontifical until he reaches for the six-shooter. That movement is as a
rattlesnake strikes.
On the players’ side of a faro table are representations of the
thirteen cards,—ace, deuce, trey, etc., to the king, in two rows of six
each with the seven at one end. On the dealer’s side, besides the
rack containing the chips, the cash drawer and the invisible six-
shooter, is a little metal box in which a pack of cards will snugly lie,
face up. The dealer moves the cards off one at a time. They fall
alternately into two piles. One pile wins; the other loses. The players
bet which pile a card will fall in, indicating it by the way they place
their money on the table. No vocal sound is necessary. It is a silent
game. The expert might play for ever and never speak a word.
John dragged up a large chair, hung his coat on the back of it,
settled himself to face the dealer and passed five hundred dollars
across the table. The dealer put the money in the cash drawer and
pushed out five stacks of yellow chips. John began to play. He did
not make his bets at random. He played a slow, rhythmic, two-
handed game, never hesitating, always thoughtful, precisely with the
air of a man playing solitaire.
For an hour or more he lost steadily. Several times his hands made a
bothered gesture, as of clearing the space in front of his face. The
dealer, the cards, the yellow chips, all objects of common reality,
were dim and uncertain, by reason of the image persisting in his
eyes,—that etched impression of Agnes and Thane in the hallway, so
twain, so improbable, yet so imminent, so— ... so—....
He groaned aloud and held his head between clenched hands. The
dealer stopped and waited. Players sometimes behave that way.
Recalling himself with a start, John looked up, cleared his play, gave
the dealer a nod to proceed and doubled the scale of his bets. That
made his game steep enough to attract attention. A little gallery
gathered. No one else cut in. He kept the table to himself. Gradually
the haunted mist broke up. The tormenting picture went away. If it
threatened to return he raised his bets again. His health revived. He
had some supper brought in and ate it as he played. He played all
night.
At seven he rose, yawned, stretched, rubbed his eyes like a man
coming out of a deep sleep, pushed his chips across the table to be
cashed, and drew on his coat while the dealer counted them.
He had won over three thousand dollars. But it was neither the fact
of his winning nor the amount of his gain that floated his spirits. It
was getting that picture out of his eyes and the feeling that went
with it out of his heart. Losing would have served him quite as well,
psychically, though of course winning was only that much more to
boot.
Always for him the excitement of chance was a perfect refuge from
thought and reality, better than sleep, which may be troubled with
dreams, and restful in the same way that dreamless sleep is.
Now as he walked toward the hotel, though the morning was wet
and heavy, he felt fresh in his body and optimistic in his mind. He
could think of seeing Agnes and Thane at breakfast without that
ugly lurching of his heart.
They were in the dining room when he arrived there an hour later.
His impulse was to let them alone, but Thane, seeing him, stood up
and beckoned.
“We kept a place for you,” he said.
It was so. The table was laid for three. John wondered whose wish
that was.
“I’ve had word from New Damascus,” he said to Agnes. “Your father
is all right.”
“Was there any reason to think he might not be all right?” she asked
in surprise.
“No, no,” he said. “It was merely mentioned, like the state of the
weather.”
She detected his confusion.
“You saw him last,” she said. “Did anything unusual occur?” She was
regarding him keenly.
“I thought he looked ill, or about to be,” John said, “And I asked the
servants to call the doctor. Apparently it was nothing. Anyhow ... I’ve
had word that he’s all right.”
She did not pursue the subject, but became suddenly silent, and
thereafter avoided John’s eyes, for in the midst of his explanation his
expression had changed. He had looked at her in a most
extraordinary way and she suffered a deep psychic disturbance. It
was as if he had blunderingly discovered a nameless secret. And that
was precisely what had happened. As he was talking to her,—
positively as he would swear with no wanton curiosity in his mind,—
as he looked at her and as her eyes met his in open frankness there
came an instant in which he saw how matters stood.
How can one tell? One cannot tell. It tells itself in the way the eyes
look back, in what is missing from them, in something there that
was not there before, in a certain hardness of the chin.
In no such way had Agnes changed.
That was what John saw. The discovery shook him. All his senses
leaped exultingly. She was not Thane’s,—not yet. Wild thoughts got
loose. The dining room began to sway. Then he looked at Thane and
enormously repented. His feeling for Thane was one of intense
affection. He could no more help it than he could help his feeling for
Agnes. They were separate chemistries, antagonistic. So he was torn
between them, and when he could bear it no longer he began
clumsily to excuse himself.
“We are delayed by legal formalities,” he said to Thane. “May be
three or four days yet. Take it easy. The company can stand it.”
So he left them abruptly.
All that day he fled from himself. All night he played. The next
morning he looked at his haggard self in the mirror,—looked deeply
into his own eyes, and said aloud:
“But she is his, not mine, and I will let her be, by God.”
On that he slept for twenty-four hours and rose on the third day with
a strong appetite, a clear mind and a great vow to the divinity with
whom he kept now a time of feud, now a time of grace, whimsically
alternating.
 XXII

T he divinity that made the pattern of John’s life is infinitely

mysterious. Some call it luck. Others call it chance. Both are
begging names. Mathematicians call it probability—the theory of,
and devote a branch of their science to it. Definition is impossible. It
is whatever it is that causes, permits or brings one thing to happen
in place of all the other things that might just as well have
happened. Its commonest manifestations are profoundly obscure.
On the first toss of a coin the chances are even between head and
tail. On the second toss they change. Why they change nobody can
tell; but everyone knows that the odds against the heads coming
twice in succession are two to one. If you think of it, how
preposterous! Rationally, how can the result of one throw create any
probability as to the result of the next? Yet it does. Here evidently is
some principle or rhythmic variation that we do not understand.
We speak of the law of chance. There is no such thing, for if chance
could be reduced to law it would cease to be chance. It is outside
any law we know. The mathematical odds are two to one against
double heads, yet the head may happen to come ten times in
succession, so that the actual predestined odds against the tail
showing once in ten throws were ten to one. If the head may come
ten times in succession, could it come a thousand times? No one will
say it could not. But since it has never happened as a matter of
record you can’t imagine it, and the odds against it are what you
will.
The fact of oneself is an amazing unlikelihood. The biological
chances against one’s getting born as one is, plus the chances
against any particular organism getting born at all, must have been
billions to one. Yet here one is, thinking it had been precisely
inevitable since all eternity. Perhaps it was. There may be no such
thing as chance. It may be only that we never know all the factors.
It may be. Yet does not everyone believe from experience that
survival is a continuous chance?
There are innumerable chances for and against one’s living another
day, another hour. These chances are estimated statistically and
great companies are formed to bet on them. That is life insurance.
The insurance company bets not on the life of an individual, for that
would be gambling; it bets that the aggregate life of ten thousand
people will correspond to the average duration of human life, and
that works out, because those who fall short of the average are
balanced by those who exceed it, and there is an average. But any
single life is the sport of pure chance. And we know nothing about
this fickle arbiter. Therefore we become superstitious. Belief in luck is
the only universal religion. Luck is the happy chance. The right thing
happens when it is needed. It strains a point to happen. Why it
happens, in streaks, why it happens more to some than to others,
why to a darling few it happens importunately,—these are questions
one asks in a rhetorical sense. There is no answer. Luck and genius
may be two aspects of the same thing. Luck happens and genius
happens, and there is no accounting for it.
It came to be a notorious saying about John Breakspeare that he
was lucky. But people at the same time said he was dangerous,
which would mean that he sometimes failed. That was true. He
often failed. When that happened he did not curse his luck. It only
occurred to him that he had played the wrong chance, and he went
on from there. Probably in a case like his there is a highly developed
intuition of the winning chance corresponding to a musical
composer’s intuition of harmony. The principles of harmony have
been partially discovered. But the rhythms of chance are still a
mystery.
Certainly it was chance, not luck, that brought John this day to the
edge of a small crowd in front of the county court house just as the
auctioneer was saying:
“Three thousand—three thousand—three thousand—t-h-r-E-E thous-
A-N-D! Three thousand dollars for a first class nail mill. Why,
gentlemen, it would fetch more than that by the pound for junk.
Three thousand do I hear one? Three thousand do I hear one?
GOING, at three—One! Thank you, sir.”
He bowed ironically to John.
“Thirty-one—thirty-one—thirty-one hund-r-e-d! Do-I-hear-two? Do-I-
hear-two? Do-I-hear-two? Two over there! Now do I hear three? Do-
I-hear-three? Two-do-I-hear-three?”
He was looking at John.
“Going at thirty-two. Are you all DONE? T-h-i-r-t-y-two, ONCE. T-h-i-
r-t-y-two, T W I C E. T-h-i-r-t-y-two for the third and—”
John nodded his head.
“Three! Three-I-have, three-I-have, three-I-have. Thirty-three-
hundred dollars for an up-to-date iron mill in the great city of
Pittsburgh. Thirty-three-hundred. Do I hear four? Four do I hear?
Thirty-three, thirty-three, thirty-three. Going at thirty-three hundred.
Going, ONCE. Going, TWICE. Going for the third and last time—
SOLD! to that young man over there. Now, gentlemen, the next
property to be sold by the decree of the court is a nail mill as is a
mill. It has a capacity of—”
John, thrusting his way through the crowd, interrupted.
“Where shall I go to settle for this?”
The auctioneer eyed him suspiciously and relighted his cigar before
speaking.
“If I were you,” he squinted, “I’d try the clerk of the court.”
“Where is he?”
“Haven’t you seen him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“There was no occasion.”
The auctioneer could not stand anything so opaque. It made him
sarcastic.
“If you have been playing booby horse with me and the court,—if
you h-a-v-e! Does anybody around here know your figger to look at
it?”
“This is a public auction, isn’t it?” John asked.
“Yes-sir-ee.”
“A certain property was put up here for sale?”
“Yes-sir-ee.”
“Well, I bought it,” said John. “Now I want to pay for it. Is that
clear? I want to pay for it in cash. Does that make it any clearer?
Whom shall I pay? That’s all I want to know.”
The auctioneer saved his ego with a gesture of being exceedingly
bored. He turned to the bailiff at his side and wearily tore from his
hands a large legal document. “I’ll read this,” he said. “Take him in
to the clerk.” Then he resumed—“A nail mill as is a mill, gentlemen,
particularly described, if we may read without further interruption, in
terms as follows:—”
Half an hour later John walked out of the courthouse with title to a
mill he had never seen, guaranteed by the bankruptcy court to exist
in Twenty-ninth Street and to contain tools, machines, devices, etc.,
pertaining to the manufacture of cut iron nails. It was one of four
nail mills sold that day on the court house steps.
“Can’t be much of a mill,” mused John. “Still, it doesn’t take much of
a mill to be worth thirty-three hundred dollars.”
Not until long afterward, and then not very hard, did the incongruity
of this transaction strike his sense of humor. And in fact it was not as
irrational as it might seem. He had to have a mill of some sort in
which to place Thane. Nail mills were very cheap because they had
increased too fast and were falling into bankruptcy. The other
bidders undoubtedly were men who not only had examined the mill
but who knew the state of the nail industry. It was not likely that
they would over-value the property; and he paid only one hundred
dollars more than they had been willing to give for it.
The next thing he did was to visit a lawyer whom he favorably
remembered from slight acquaintance. That was Jubal Awns,—two
small black eyes in a big round head and a pleasant way of saying
yes.
John drew a slip of paper from his pocket. He wished to incorporate
a company, to be styled the North American Manufacturing
Company, Ltd., with an authorized capital of a quarter of a million
dollars and three incorporators,—himself, the lawyer Awns and a
man named Thane.
“What is the business?” Awns asked.
“Manufacturing,” said John.
“Yes,” said Awns, “but what do we manufacture? What is the
property to be incorporated?”
“A nail mill to begin with,” said John.
“Where is it?”
“Here in Pittsburgh. Thirty-ninth Street.”
“That’s got me,” said Awns. “I can’t think of any nail mill in Thirty-
ninth Street.”
John looked at the bill of sale and improved the address without the
slightest change of expression.
“Twenty-ninth,” he said.
The lawyer took the bill of sale, glanced at it, and gave John a
curious look.
“Have you seen it?”
“No.”
“Bought it sight unseen?”
“Yes.”
“How much stock of this new company do you mean to issue?”
“Founders’ shares, or whatever they are, and then stock to myself
for what I put in,—the mill, the money to start with, and so on.”
“Then why an authorized capital of a quarter of a million?”
“Because I’m going into the iron and steel business,” said John.
Awns studied him in silence.
“You have quit with Gib at New Damascus?”
“I’m out for myself,” said John.
“All right,” said Awns. “Here’s for the North American Manufacturing
Company, Limited.”
They drew up papers. At the end of the business John asked: “Will
you take your fee in cash or stock?”
Jubal Awns was amazed, and somehow challenged, too. He was ten
years older than John, successful and shrewd, with a delusion that
he was romantic. He loved to dramatize a matter and make
unexpected decisions. Putting down the papers he got up and
walked three times across the floor with an air of meditation.
“I’ll take it in stock,” he said, “provided I may incorporate all of your
companies and take my fees that way each time.”
They shook hands on it.
It was late that afternoon when John and Thane together set out in
a buggy from the hotel to inspect the mill. Thane was eager and
communicative. He had not been taking it easy. He evidently had
visited all the big mills in and around Pittsburgh. He had seen some
new practice and much that was bad, and had got a lot of ideas. He
had informed himself as to the conditions of labor. Here and there he
had found a man he meant to pick up.
And all the time John’s heart was sinking.
As they turned into Twenty-ninth Street the eight stacks of the
Keystone Iron Works rose in their eyes. No other iron working plant
was visible in the vicinity, and as John, looking for his nail mill,
began to slow up, Thane leaped to the notion that the Keystone was
their goal.
“She’s a whale,” he said, enthusiastically, but with no sound of awe.
John gave him a squinting glance.
“Would you tackle that?” he asked.
“Oh,” said Thane, “then that ain’t it.” In his tone was a sense of
disappointment that answered John’s question. Of course he would
tackle it.
They drove slowly past the Keystone, past dump heaps, sand lots, a
row of unpainted, upside down boxes called houses, and came at
length to a group of rude sheds, one large one and four small ones.
One of the small ones, open in front like a wood-shed, was filled
with empty nail kegs in tiers.
The front door of the big central shed was propped shut with an iron
bar. John kicked it away, pulled the door open, and they went in. A
figure rose out of the dimness, asking, “What’d ye want?”
“Are you Coleman’s caretaker?” John asked. Coleman was the name
of the bankrupt.
“Yep,” said the man.
So this was the mill.
“We’ve bought him out,” said John. “Want to have a look at the
plant.”
“Help yourself.”
They walked about silently on the earthen, scrap littered floor. A nail
mill, as nail mills were at that time, was not much to look at, and a
cold iron working plant of any kind has a bygone, extinct
appearance. Thane had never seen a cold mill. He was horribly
depressed. Gradually their eyes grew used to the dimness. The
equipment consisted of an overloaded driving engine, one small
furnace for heating iron bars, a train of rolls for reducing the bars to
sheets the thickness of nails and five automatic machines for cutting
nails from the sheet like cookies,—all in bad to fair condition.
“Won’t look so sad when you get her hot and begin to turn her over,”
said John.
Thane said nothing. Having examined the machinery and the
furnace thoughtfully he stood for a long time surveying the mill as a
whole. There was no inventory to speak of. The raw material, which
was bar iron bought outside, had been worked up clean. They
looked into the small sheds and then it began to be dark. As they
drove away Thane spoke. It was the first word he had uttered.
“When do we start up?”
“Right away,” said John. “I’ll contract some iron tomorrow.”
“Give me a couple of weeks,” said Thane. “There’s a lot to be done
to that place.”
“What?”
“She’s all upside down,” he said. “The stuff ain’t moving right. No
wonder they had to shut up.”
That night at supper Agnes questioned her puddler.
“What is your mill like?”
“A one horse thing.”
His manner was preoccupied and she let him alone. After supper he
went to his room, removed his coat, waistcoat, collar and shoes and
sat with his feet in the window, thinking.
They had three rooms,—two bed chambers and a living room
between. She sat in the middle room sewing, with a view of him
through the door, which he left ajar. He did not move, except to refill
and light his pipe. He was still there, slowly receding beyond a veil of
smoke, when she retired.
Before he went to bed the little nail mill was all made over and the
stuff was moving right.
Thane at this time was twenty-five. He had lived nearly all his life in
the iron mill at New Damascus. He could not remember a time when
its uproar and smells were not familiar to his senses. His mother
died when he was three. He was the only child. Then his father, who
was a puddler and loved him fiercely, began to take him to the mill.
It was a wonderful nursery. When the shift was daytime he was the
puddlers’ mascot and playmate. At night he slept on a pallet in some
gloom hidden niche from which he could see his father, satanically
transfigured in the glare of the furnace. Then he went to school, but
spent all his playtime in the mill. The thrill of it never failed him.
When he was old enough to carry water he got a job. At nineteen he
became his father’s helper and delighted to vie with him in the
weight of pig iron he could lift and heave into the maw of the
furnace. The normal carry was one pig. He began to carry two at a
time and his father matched him. But one day his father stumbled.
As they stooped again side by side at the iron pile he picked up one
pig. The old man gave him a queer, startled look and did the same.
After that it was always one pig, and they never spoke of it. When
his father died Alexander took his place, and as he drew his first
heat, Enoch watching, the fact stood granted. He was the best
puddler in the mill.
He had it in his hands. Of iron, for coaxing, shaping and compelling
it, he had that kind of tactile understanding an artist has for paint or
clay, or any plastic stuff. He seemed to think with his hands. It is a
mysterious gift, and leaves it open to wonder whether the brain has
made the hand or the hand the brain. Besides this intuitive
knowledge that belongs to the hand Thane possessed a natural
sense of mechanics and a naïve way of taking nothing for granted
because it happens so to be. All of this was to be revealed. It was
John’s luck.
 XXIII

W hile Thane was thinking how to set the nail mill in order, John,
sitting in the hotel lobby with his feet in the window, gnawing
a cigar, was reflecting in another sphere. His problem was the nail
industry at large. It was in a parlous way. Although cut iron nails had
been made by automatic machines for a long time there had
recently appeared a machine that displaced all others, because it
made the nail complete, head and all, in one run, and was very fast.
This machine coming suddenly into use had caused an over-
production of nails. The price had fallen to a point where there was
actually a loss instead of a profit in nail making unless one produced
one’s own iron and got a profit there. The Twenty-ninth Street plant
had to buy its iron. The probability of running it at a profit was nil.
His meditations carried him far into the night. The lights were put
out and still he sat with his feet in the window, musing, reflecting,
dreaming, with a relaxed and receptive mind. An idea came to him.
It will be important to consider what that idea was for it became
afterward a classic pattern. It had the audacity of great simplicity. He
would combine the whole nail making industry in his North American
Manufacturing Company, Ltd. Then production could be suited to
demand and the price of nails could be advanced to a paying level.
He took stock of his capital. It was fifteen thousand dollars. Maybe it
could be stretched to twenty. In his work with Gib, selling rails, he
had acquired a miscellaneous lot of very cheap and highly
speculative railroad shares, some of which were beginning to have
value. But twenty thousand dollars would be the outside
measurement, and to think of setting out with that amount of capital
to acquire control of the nail making industry, worth perhaps half a
million dollars, was at a glance fantastic. But one’s capital may exist
in the idea. John already understood the art of finance.
Leaving the Twenty-ninth Street plant in Thane’s hands, with funds
for overhauling it, he consulted with Jubal Awns and set out the next
morning on his errand.
The nail makers were responsive for an obvious reason. They were
all losing money. In a short time John laid before Awns a sheaf of
papers.
“There’s the child,” he said. “Examine it.”
He had got options in writing on every important nail mill in the
country save one. The owners agreed to sell out to the North
American Manufacturing Co., Ltd., taking in payment either cash or
preferred shares at their pleasure. The inducement to take preferred
shares was that if they did they would receive a bonus of fifty per
cent. in common stock.
“But they will take cash in every case,” said Awns, “and where will
you find it?”
“They won’t,” said John. “I’ll see to that. What have you done with
Gib?”
Awns had been to see Enoch. The New Damascus mill produced in
its nail department a fifth of all the nails then made. There was no
probability of buying him out. John well knew that. Yet his nail
output had to be controlled in some way, else the combine would
fail. So he had sent Awns to him with alternative propositions. The
first was to buy him out of the nail making business. And when he
had declined to sell, as of course he would, Awns was to negotiate
for his entire output under a long term contract.
“He wouldn’t sell his nail business,” said Awns.
“I knew that,” said John.
“But I’ve got a contract for all his nails,” said Awns, handing over the
paper. “The price is stiff,—fifty cents a keg more than nails are
worth. It was the best I could do.”
“That’s all right,” said John reading the agreement. “We are going to
add a dollar a keg to nails. This phrase—‘unless the party of the
second part,’ (that’s Gib), ‘wishes to sell nails at a lower price to the
trade’—who put that in?”
“He did,” said Awns. “I couldn’t see any point in objecting to it. No
man is going to undersell his own contract.”
John handed the agreement back and sat for several minutes
musing.
“There’s a loose wheel in your scheme, if I’m not mistaken,” said
Awns. “If you add a dollar a keg to nails won’t you bring in a lot of
new competition? Anybody can make nails if it pays. These same
people who sell out to you may turn around and begin again. You’ll
be holding the umbrella for everybody else.”
“Anybody can’t make nails,” said John. “I’ve looked at that.”
“Why not?”
“Nail making machines are covered by patents. There are only four
firms that make them. I’ve made air tight contracts with them. We
take all their machines at an advance of twenty-five per cent. over
present prices and they bind themselves to sell machines to nobody
else during the life of the contract. So we’ve got the bag sewed up
top and bottom. They were glad to do it because there isn’t any
profit in machines either with the nail makers all going busted.”
Awns stared at him with doubt and admiration mingled.
“Well, that is showing them something,” he said. “If you go far with
that kind of thing laws will be passed to stop it.”
“It’s legal, isn’t it?”
“There’s no law against it,” said Awns.
“We’re not obliged to be more legal than the law,” said John. “Tell
me, what do you know about bankers in Pittsburgh? I’ve got to do
some business in that quarter.”
Pittsburgh at this time was not a place prepared. It was a sign, a
pregnant smudge, a state of phenomena. The great mother was
undergoing a Cæsarian operation. An event was bringing itself to
pass. The steel age was about to be delivered.
Men performed the office of obstetrics without knowing what they
did. They could neither see nor understand it. They struggled blindly,
falling down and getting up. Forces possessed them. Their psychic
condition was that of men to whom fabulous despair and
extravagant expectation were the two ends of one ecstasy. They
were hard, shrewd, sentimental, superstitious, romantic in friendship
and conscienceless in trade. They named their blast furnaces after
their wives and sweethearts, stole each other’s secrets, fell out with
their partners, knew no law of business but to lay on what the traffic
would bear, read Swedenborg and dreamed of Heaven as a
thoroughfare resembling Wood Street, Pittsburgh, lined with banks
and in the door of each bank a grovelling president, pleading:
“Here’s money for your payrolls. Please borrow it here. Very fine
quality of money. Pay it back when you like.”
They were always begging money at the banks. When they made
money they used it to build more mills and to fill the mills with
automatic monsters that grew stranger and more fantastic. Many of
these monsters, like things in nature’s own history of trial and error,
appeared for a short time and became extinct. When they were not
making money they were bankrupt. That was about half the time.
Then they came to the banks in Wood Street to implore, beg,
wheedle money to meet their payrolls.
There is the legend of a man, afterward one of the great
millionaires, who drove one mare so often to Wood Street and from
one bank to another in a zigzag course that the animal came to
know the stops by heart, made them automatically, and could not be
made to go in a straight line through this lane of money doors.
The bankers were a tough minded group. They had to be. Nobody
was quite safe. A man with a record for sanity would suddenly lose
his balance and cast away the substance of certainty to pursue a
vision. The effort to adapt the Bessemer steel process to American
conditions was an irresistible road to ruin. That process was
producing amazing results in Europe but in this country it was
bewitched with perversity and it looked as if the English and German
manufacturers would walk away with the steel age. Fortunes were
still being swallowed up in snail shaped vessels called converters,
not unlike the one Aaron had built at New Damascus twenty-five
years before.
Of all the bankers in Wood Street the toughest minded was Lemuel
Slaymaker.
“All the same,” said Awns, “I should try him first. His name would
put it through and he loves a profit.”
Awns knew him. They went together to see him. Slaymaker saluted
Awns and acknowledged his introduction of Mr. John Breakspeare
not otherwise nor more than by turning slowly in his chair and
staring at them. He had a large white face, pale blue eyes and red,
close-cropped hair. The impression he made was one of total
sphericity. There was no way to take hold of him. No thought or
feeling projected.
John laid out his plan, producing the papers as exhibits, A, B, C, in
the appropriate places. Lastly he produced data on the nail trade,
showing the amount of nails consumed in the country and the
normal rate of annual increase with the growth of population,
together with a carefully developed estimate of the combine’s profits
at various prices per keg. When he had finished the idea was lucid,
complete in every part and self-evident. Therein lay the secret of his
extraordinary power of persuasion. He seemed never to argue his
case. He expressed no opinion of his own to be combatted. He
merely laid down a state of facts with an air of looking at them from
the other man’s point of view.
“And what you want is a bank to guarantee this scheme,” said
Slaymaker. “You want a bank to guarantee that if these people want
cash instead of stock the cash will be forthcoming.”
This was the first word he had spoken. The papers he had not even
glanced at. They lay on his desk as John had placed them there.
“That’s it,” said John. “Guarantee it. Very little cash will be required.”
“How do you say that?”
“To make them want stock instead of cash,” said John, “you have
only to engage brokers to make advance quotations for the stock,
here and in Philadelphia at, say, par for the preferred and fifty for
the common. If you do not know brokers who can do that I will find
them. The scheme is sound. The stock will pay dividends from the
start. A bank that had guaranteed it might very well speak a good
word for it here and there. The public will want some of the stock.”
Slaymaker gazed at a corner of the ceiling and twiggled his foot.
Then he turned his back on them.
“Leave the papers,” he said, “and see me at this time tomorrow.”
When they were in the street again Awns said: “You got him.”
And so the infant trust was born,—first of its kind, first of a giant
brood. Biologically they were all alike, but with evolution their size
increased prodigiously. The swaddling cloths of this one would not
have patched the eye of a twentieth century specimen delivered in
Wall Street.
Slaymaker’s lawyers and Jubal Awns together verified all the
agreements. The stock of the N. A. M. Co., Ltd., was increased
enough to make sure there would be plenty to go around. Slaymaker
took a large amount for banker’s fees, John took a block for
promoter’s services and another block for the Twenty-ninth Street
mill, the lawyers took some, and a certain amount was set aside for
Thane,—for Agnes really. John was elected president and the
combine was launched. Before the day came on which the options of
purchase were to be exercised the preferred stock was publicly
quoted at 105 and the common stock at 55, and there were
symptoms of public interest in its possibilities. As John predicted,
nearly all the nail manufacturers elected to take stock in the new
company, with Slaymaker’s name behind it.
Everyone at length was more enthusiastic than John. He kept
thinking of that phrase in the contract with Gib—“unless the party of
the second part wishes to sell nails to the trade at a lower price.” No
one else had noticed it, not even Slaymaker. Nobody else would
have had any misgivings about it. Who could imagine, as Awns said,
that a man would undersell his own contract? There is a law of self
interest one takes for granted.
 XXIV

T hane had been reporting laconically on the Twenty-ninth Street

mill. It now was in action and the nails were piling up. John had
not been out to see it. Their contacts had become irregular;
generally they met by accident in the hotel lobby, rarely in the dining
room. This was owing partly to John’s absorption in his scheme and
partly to the resolve he had made to avoid Agnes. He had not once
been close enough to speak to her since that third morning when his
haggard true self met his anti-self in the mirror, saying: “She is his.”
The only way he could put her out of his mind at all was to involve
himself in difficulties. Trouble was a cave of refuge. As during those
two nights of struggle with his anti-self, when it had almost
conquered him, he played absently at faro and increased his bets to
make the game absorbing, so afterward in business, wilfully at first
and then by habit, he preferred the hazardous alternative; he
seemed to seek those situations in which the chance was all or
none. This made his ways uncanny. Luck seems to favor one who
doesn’t care. Or it may be that one who doesn’t care sees more
clearly than the rest, being free of fear.
“Better come and sight it,” said Thane, one morning in the lobby.
“I’m worried where to put the nails.”
“We’ll go now,” said John. “Anyhow, I want to talk to you. I don’t
know about this Twenty-ninth Street mill. It’s a poor layout. Maybe
we’d better shut it up. Now don’t get uneasy. Wait till I’m through.
The company—(and, by the way, you are a director and there’s some
stock in your name)—it has bought nearly all the nail mills there are.
Over a hundred, big and little, all over the place. The idea is to
combine the nail industry in one organization and put it back on a
paying basis. I want you to go around with me and have a look at
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