Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II " WHAT ELSE IS THEEE ? " Murdoch was off early next morning for New York to join Tom Berkeley and sign the final papers and receive the checks and securities. This business was a matter of a few hours. But, instead of going straightway home as he intended when he left, he lingered in New York. " Why rush back ? " said Tom. " You forget you're free now. There's nothing to go back to." " That's a fact," agreed Murdock. " Except, of course, the family." " Of course," said Murdock, with unnecessary haste and emphasis. " And I don't think," Tom went on, " that your family bothers you much more than mine does me. As my wife often says—she's mighty shrewd— As she often says, American men are a race of bachelors. It's amusing to hear foreigners and these scrubby half- males that do the scribbling talk about this country as the paradise of women, as the place where the women run everything. We do let the women run the children and the culture and the frivolous end of the game. But when it comes to things worth while, the women aren't in it. When I talk to my wife about business or politics, it's just as if I was alone and talking to myself to get a line on what I ought to do.She don't know the a b c's of practical affairs. That' a it should be." Murdock made no comment. If he had spoken, it would have been simply to assent. " The respectable women," proceeded Berkeley, like a man feeling his way with another, " are the steady round of the three plain square meals. The others are the occasional banquet with French cooking and several kinds of wine." Murdock saw that Tom was breaking ground for an attempt to induce him to join in the extremely unconventional relaxations of which he had observed his elderly ex-partner was becoming increasingly fond, and in whi... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.