He studied his own conduct, but could convince himself of no voluntary wrongdoing.  Yet he was in a cell. ...  In the beginning he had merely tried to understand something that aroused his curiosity—­ labor.  From the point of view of capital, as represented by his father, this had been a sin.  How or why it was a sin he could not comprehend. ...  Labor had been willing to be friendly, but now it hated him.  Orders given in his name, but not originating in his will, had caused this.  His attitude became fatalistic—­he was being moved about by a ruthless hand without regard to his own volition.  He might as well close his eyes and his mind and submit, for Bonbright Foote VII did not exist as a rational human individual, but only as a checker on the board, to be moved from square to square with such success or error as the player possessed.

Last night. ...  He had been mishandled by the employees of capital and the guardians of society; he had been mobbed by labor.  He resented the guard and the police, but could not resent the mobbing. ...  He seemed to be dangling between two worlds, mishandled by either that he approached.  But one fact he realized—­labor would have none of him.  His father had seen to that.  There was no place for him to go but into the refuge of capital, and so to become an enemy to labor against which he had no quarrel. ...  This night set him more deeply in the Bonbright Foote groove.  There was nothing for him now but complete submission, apathetic submission.

If it must be so, it must be so.  He would let the family current bear him on.  He would be but another Bonbright Foote, differentiated from the others only by a numeral to designate his generation.

Singularly, his own immediate problem did not present itself insistently until daylight began to penetrate the murk of the cell.  What would the authorities do with him?  How was he to get his liberty?  Would the thing become public?  He felt his helplessness, his inadequacy.  He could not ask his father to help him, for he did not want his father ever to know what had happened the night before, yet he must have help from some one.  Suddenly the name of Malcolm Lightener occurred to him.

After a time the doorman appeared with breakfast.

“Can I send a message?” asked Bonbright.

The doorman scrutinized him, saw he was no bum of the streets, but quite evidently a gentleman in temporary difficulty.

“Maybe,” he said, grudgingly.  “Gimme the message and I’ll see.”

“Please telephone Mr. Malcolm Lightener that the younger of the gentlemen he called on last evening is here and would like to see him.”

“Malcolm Lightener, the automobile feller?”

“Yes.”

“Friend of your’n?”

“Yes.”

“Um!...”  The doorman disappeared to return presently with the lieutenant.

“What’s this about Malcolm Lightener?” the officer asked.