"You've made a fine start," he continued, "and I think you're going to make good. But first let's see what you'll do by yourself. Get your own view of this place as it is to-day before we talk about plans for to-morrow. And don't hurry. Take your time."
As he said this quietly, I suddenly awoke to the fact that we were tearing down the river at a perfectly gorgeous speed. The river was crowding with traffic ahead, all was a rushing chaos of life and we were rushing worst of all. And yet we did not seem to hurry. Old Captain Arty sat at the wheel with the most resigned patient look in his eyes. And drawing lazily on his cigar Dillon was watching a new line of wharves.
"You know I've found," he was saying, "the only way to live in this age and get any pleasure out of life is to always take more time than you need for every job you tackle. I'm taking at least seven years to this job. I might possibly do it as well in five, but I'd miss half the fun of it all, I'd be glaring at separate parts of it, each one as it came along, and I'd never have time to see it full size and let it carry me 'round the world--to that baby carriage, for instance, over in Lahore."
We were rounding the Battery now. And in that sparkling morning light, with billowy waves of sea green all around us, sudden snowy clouds of spray, we watched for a moment the skyscraper group, the homes of the Big Companies. The sunshine was reflected from thousands of dazzling window eyes, little streamers of steam were flung out gaily overhead, streets suddenly opened to our view, narrow cuts revealing the depths below. And there came to our ears a deep humming.
"That's the brains of it all," said Dillon. "In all you'll see while exploring the wharves you'll find some string that leads back here. And you don't want to let that worry you. Let the muckrakers worry and plan all they please for a sea-gate and a nation that's to run with its brains removed. You want to remember it can't be done. You want to look harder and harder--until you find out for yourself that there are men up there on Wall Street without whose brains no big thing can be done in this country. I'm working under their orders and some day I hope you'll be doing the same. For they don't need _less_ publicity but _more_."