Part 15

O.M. Has any member of the family ever implored you to watch your temper and not fly out at the girl?

Y.M. Yes. My mother.

O.M. You love her?

Y.M. Oh, more than that!

O.M. You would always do anything in your power to please her?

Y.M. It is a delight to me to do anything to please her!

O.M. Why? You would do it for pay, solely —for profit. What profit would you expect and certainly receive from the investment?

Y.M. Personally? None. To please her is enough.

O.M. It appears, then, that your object, primarily, wasn’t to save the girl a humiliation, but to please your mother. It also appears that to please your mother gives you a strong pleasure. Is not that the profit which you get out of the investment? Isn’t that the real profits and first profit?

Y.M. Oh, well? Go on.

O.M. In all transactions, the Interior Master looks to it that you get the first profit. Otherwise there is no transaction.

Y.M. Well, then, if I was so anxious to get that profit and so intent upon it, why did I throw it away by losing my temper?

O.M. In order to get another profit which suddenly superseded it in value.

Y.M. Where was it?

O.M. Ambushed behind your born temperament, and waiting for a chance. Your native warm temper suddenly jumped to the front, and for the moment its influence was more powerful than your mother’s, and abolished it. In that instance you were eager to flash out a hot rebuke and enjoy it. You did enjoy it, didn’t you?

Y.M. For—for a quarter of a second. Yes—I did.

O.M. Very well, it is as I have said: the thing which will give you the most pleasure, the most satisfaction, in any moment or fraction of a moment, is the thing you will always do. You must content the Master’s latest whim, whatever it may be.

Y.M. But when the tears came into the old servant’s eyes I could have cut my hand off for what I had done.

O.M. Right. You had humiliated yourself, you see, you had given yourself pain. Nothing is of first importance to a man except results which damage him or profit him—all the rest is secondary. Your Master was displeased with you, although you had obeyed him. He required a prompt repentance; you obeyed again; you had to—there is never any escape from his commands. He is a hard master and fickle; he changes his mind in the fraction of a second, but you must be ready to obey, and you will obey, always. If he requires repentance, you content him, you will always furnish it. He must be nursed, petted, coddled, and kept contented, let the terms be what they may.

Y.M. Training! Oh, what’s the use of it? Didn’t I, and didn’t my mother try to train me up to where I would no longer fly out at that girl?

O.M. Have you never managed to keep back a scolding?

Y.M. Oh, certainly—many times.

O.M. More times this year than last?

Y.M. Yes, a good many more.

O.M. More times last year than the year before?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. There is a large improvement, then, in the two years?

Y.M. Yes, undoubtedly.