Usually these journeys between office and home or club in the evening gave Norman a chance for ten or fifteen minutes of sleep.  He had discovered that this brief dropping of the thread of consciousness gave him a wonderful fresh grip upon the day, enabled him to work or play until late into the night without fatigue.  But that evening his mind was wide awake.  Nor could he fix it upon business.  It would interest itself only in the hurrying throngs of foot passengers and the ideas they suggested:  Here am I—­so ran his thoughts—­here am I, tucked away comfortably while all those poor creatures have to plod along in the storm.  I could afford to be sick.  They can’t.  And what have I done to deserve this good fortune?  Nothing.  Worse than nothing.  If I had made my career along the lines of what is honest and right and beneficial to my fellow men, I’d probably be plugging home under an umbrella—­and to a pretty poor excuse for a home.  But I was too wise to do that.  I’ve spent this day, as I spend all my days, in helping the powerful rich to add to their wealth and power, to add to the burdens those poor devils out there in the rain must bear.  And I’m rewarded with a limousine, and all the rest of it.

These thoughts neither came from nor produced a mood of penitence, or of regret even.  Norman was simply indulging in his favorite pastime—­following without prejudice the leading of a chain of pure logic.  He despised self-deceivers.  He always kept himself free from prejudice and all its wiles.  He took life as he found it; but he did not excuse it and himself with the familiar hypocrisies that make the comfortable classes preen themselves on being the guardians and saviours of the ignorant, incapable masses.  When old Lockyer said one day that this was the function of the “upper classes,” Norman retorted:  “Perhaps.  But, if so, how do they perform it?  Like the brutal old-fashioned farm family that takes care of its insane member by keeping him chained in filth in the cellar.”  And once at the Federal Club—­By the way, Norman had joined it, had compelled it to receive him just to show his associates how a strong man could break even such a firmly established tradition as that no one who amounted to anything could be elected to a fashionable club in New York.  Once at the Federal Club old Galloway quoted with approval some essayist’s remark that every clever human being was looking after and holding above the waves at least fifteen of his weaker fellows.  Norman smiled satirically round at the complacently nodding circle of gray heads and white heads.  “My observation has been,” said he, “that every clever chap is shrewd enough to compel at least fifteen of his fellows to wait on him, to take care of him—­do his chores—­and his dirty work.”  The nodding stopped.  Scowls appeared, except on the face of old Galloway.  He grinned.  He was one of the few examples of a very rich man with a sense of humor.  Norman always thought it was this slight incident that led to his getting the extremely profitable—­and shady—­Galloway business.