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By Booth Tarkington: Sheridan

When young Jim had proposed, Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan, his sister-in-law, offered to help Mary in return for help in an affair of her own. Mary saw that in bartering she was to be bartered with. Her soul rebelled and she declined to marry young Jim Sheridan. He never got the letter.

Sheridan demanded of Bibbs if he would quit dreaming of poetry and follow with Roscoe and Jim to make the business and the city bigger. Bibbs could not understand why anybody wanted to make things bigger. "Damnation!" roared Sheridan. "Did you ever hear the word 'Prosperity'? You ninny! Did you ever hear the word 'Ambition'? Did you ever hear the word 'Progress'? Look at Jim, just completing two more big warehouses at the pump-works in half the time the contractors wanted. Jim took the contract himself, found a fellow with a new cement process, and we begin using them next week. Now I'm goin' to make a man of you. By God! I am!" And Bibbs was given two months to get his mental attitude right for the pump-works. Miss Vertrees's note went to the senior Sheridan, as that afternoon one of the new warehouse walls collapsed, sending the inventor and James Sheridan, Jr., to their eternity.