No, Norman’s mood, as he watched the miserable crowds afoot and reflected upon them, was neither remorseful nor triumphant.  He simply noted an interesting fact—­a commonplace fact—­of the methods of that sardonic practical joker, Life.  Because the scheme of things was unjust and stupid, because others, most others, were uncomfortable or worse—­why should he make himself uncomfortable?  It would be an absurdity to get out of his limousine and trudge along in the wet and the wind.  It would be equally absurd to sit in his limousine and be unhappy about the misery of the world.  “I didn’t create it, and I can’t recreate it.  And if I’m helping to make it worse, I’m also hastening the time when it’ll be better.  The Great Ass must have brains and spirit kicked and cudgeled into it.”

At his house in Madison Avenue, just at the crest of Murray Hill, there was an awning from front door to curb and a carpet beneath it.  He passed, dry and comfortable, up the steps.  A footman in quiet rich livery was waiting to receive him.  From rising until bedtime, up town and down town, wherever he went and whatever he was about, every possible menial detail of his life was done for him.  He had nothing to do but think about his own work and keep himself in health.  Rarely did he have even to open or to close a door.  He used a pen only in signing his name or marking a passage in a law book for some secretary to make a typewritten copy.

Upon most human beings this sort of luxury, carried beyond the ordinary and familiar uses of menial service, has a speedily enervating effect.  Thinking being the most onerous of all, they have it done, also.  They sink into silliness and moral and mental sloth.  They pass the time at foolish purposeless games indoors and out; or they wander aimlessly about the earth chattering with similar mental decrepits, much like monkeys adrift in the boughs of a tropical forest.  But Norman had the tenacity and strength to concentrate upon achievement all the powers emancipated by the use of menials wherever menials could be used.  He employed to advantage the time saved in putting in shirt buttons and lacing shoes and carrying books to and from shelves.  In this lay one of the important secrets of his success.  “Never do for yourself what you can get some one else to do for you as well.  Save yourself for the things only you can do.”

In his household there were three persons, and sixteen servants to wait upon them.  His sister—­she and her husband, Clayton Fitzhugh, were the other two persons—­his sister was always complaining that there were not enough servants, and Frederick, the most indulgent of brothers, was always letting her add to the number.  It seemed to him that the more help there was, the less smoothly the household ran.  But that did not concern him; his mind was saved for more important matters.  There was no reason why it should concern him; could he not compel the dollars to flood in faster than she could bail them out?