looked at me amusedly.

"Yes, I think that's an improvement, Hugh," he said. I had a feeling
that I had gained ground, and from this time on I thought I detected a
change in his attitude toward me; there could be no doubt about the new
attitude of Mr. Scherer, who would often greet me now with a smile and
a joke, and sometimes went so far as to ask my opinions.... Then, about
six months later, came the famous Ribblevale case that aroused the moral
indignation of so many persons, among whom was Perry Blackwood.

"You know as well as I do, Hugh, how this thing is being manipulated,"
he declared at Tom's one Sunday evening; "there was nothing the matter
with the Ribblevale Steel Company--it was as right as rain before
Leonard Dickinson and Grierson and Scherer and that crowd you train with
began to talk it down at the Club. Oh, they're very compassionate. I've
heard 'em. Dickinson, privately, doesn't think much of Ribblevale paper,
and Pugh" (the president of the Ribblevale) "seems worried and looks
badly. It's all very clever, but I'd hate to tell you in plain words
what I'd call it."

"Go ahead," I challenged him audaciously. "You haven't any proof that
the Ribblevale wasn't in trouble."

"I heard Mr. Pugh tell my father the other day it was a d--d outrage. He
couldn't catch up with these rumours, and some of his stockholders were
liquidating."

"You, don't suppose Pugh would want to admit his situation, do you?" I
asked.

"Pugh's a straight man," retorted Perry. "That's more than I can say
for any of the other gang, saving your presence. The unpleasant truth is
that Scherer and the Boyne people want the Ribblevale, and you ought to
know it if you don't." He looked at me very hard through the glasses he
had lately taken to wearing. Tom, who was lounging by the fire, shifted
his position uneasily. I smiled, and took another cigar.

"I believe Ralph is right, Perry, when he calls you a sentimentalist.
For you there's a tragedy behind every ordinary business transaction.
The Ribblevale people are having a hard time to keep their heads above
water, and immediately you smell conspiracy. Dickinson and Scherer have
been talking it down. How about it, Tom?"

But Tom, in these debates, was inclined to be noncommittal, although it
was clear they troubled him.

"Oh, don't ask me, Hughie," he said.

"I suppose I ought to cultivate the scientific point of view, and look
with impartial interest at this industrial cannibal