Many people’s favorite segments from Atlas shrugged. are also mine. (See here and here.) But there are a lot of shorter segments that I particularly like.
Here is one on child labor (p. 92 of the paperback.)
Francisco d’Anconia, at 12, hides from Mrs. Taggart (Dagne’s mother) the fact that he works in the summer at Taggart Transcontinental. Mrs. Taggart eventually wakes up and catches up to him. Here are the dialogs:
“Francisco”, she [Mrs. Taggart] asked, when she drove him home, “what would your father say about it, if he knew?”
“My father used to ask me if I was good at the job or not. That’s all he wants to know.
“Come on, I’m serious.”
Franciso looked at her politely, his courteous manner reminiscent of centuries of breeding and salons; but something in his eyes made her unsure of politeness. “Last winter,” he replied, “I went on board a steam freighter carrying copper from Anconia. My father looked for me for three months but that’s all he asked when I came back.
I first read Atlas shrugged. a few days after my 17th birthday and I had had a number of jobs at the start of my second decade. Not so exciting, of course, and not full time. But still, I told.