His family thought he was sobering down
very quickly, but, busy with other things,
took little notice of his mood, and never un-



THE COST OF MONEY 21

derstood the nightmare his life was to him —
the intense loathing he had for his work and
all related to it. He was surrounded by the
commercial atmosphere. ''Business" was
so much a matter of course to every one
about him that he knew he could hope for
no sympathy, and so kept his blue devils to
himself. Had not the family in all its
branches been made by business ? Was not
all they had due to it ? Did they not owe
to it not alone their life and breath, their
food and drink, but also their pleasure, their
position, everything? Was not the very
city in which they lived redolent of busi-
ness, flavored as it were with the essential
extract of trade, commercial to its marrow ?
How he hated it — the narrow, ugly streets,
the flatness, the miles of brick houses, all
alike, all hideous, stretching into hideous
suburbs, where the brick boxes gave place to
architectural horrors in party-colored stone
— a city of Philistinism, of vulgarity, rich
and poor confounded in one garment of sor-
did mediocrity.
