But what was the end of it all?
A larger plant with more machines to buy and more men to work them and to be overseen and to be paid, a few more figures in a Bank Book--what else?
Jack's tastes were simple.

He despised the ostentation of wealth in the accumulation of mere things.

He had only pity for the plunger and for the loose liver contempt.

Why should he tie himself to a desk, a well appointed desk it is true, but still a desk, in a four-walled room, a much finer room than his father had ever known, but a room which became to him a cage.
Why?
Of course, there was his father--and Jack wearily turned to his correspondence basket, sick of the sight of paper and letter heads and cost forms and production reports.

For his father's sake, who had only him, he would carry on.