othing under hand about it, which can't be
said of most businesses, whether of the big corporations or of the
cheating, lying, little corner-grocerymen. I play the straight rules
of the game, and I don't have to lie or cheat or break my word."

Dede hailed with relief the change in the conversation and at the same
time the opportunity to speak her mind.

"In ancient Greece," she began pedantically, "a man was judged a good
citizen who built houses, planted trees--" She did not complete the
quotation, but drew the conclusion hurriedly. "How many houses have
you built? How many trees have you planted?"

He shook his head noncommittally, for he had not grasped the drift of
the argument.

"Well," she went on, "two winters ago you cornered coal--"

"Just locally," he grinned reminiscently, "just locally. And I took
advantage of the car shortage and the strike in British Columbia."

"But you didn't dig any of that coal yourself. Yet you forced it up
four dollars a ton and made a lot of money. That was your business.
You made the poor people pay more for their coal. You played fair, as
you said, but you put your hands down into all their pockets and took
their money away from them. I know. I burn a grate fire in my
sitting-room at Berkeley. And instead of eleven dollars a ton for Rock
Wells, I paid fifteen dollars that winter. You robbed me of four
dollars. I could stand it. But there were thousands of the very poor
who could not stand it. You might call it legal gambling, but to me it
was downright robbery."

Daylight was not abashed. This was no revelation to him. He
remembered the old woman who made wine in the Sonoma hills and the
millions like her who were made to be robbed.

"Now look here, Miss Mason, you've got me there slightly, I grant. But
you've seen me in business a long time now, and you know I don't make a
practice of raiding the poor people. I go after the big fellows.
They're my meat. They rob the poor, and I rob them. That coal deal
was an accident. I wasn't after the poor people in that, but after the
big fellows, and I got them, too. The poor people happened to get in
the way and got hurt, that was all.

"Don't you see," he went on, "the whole game is a gamble. Everybody
gambles in one way or another. The farmer gambles against the weather
and the market on his crops. So does the United States Steel
Corporation. The business of lots of men is straight robbery of the
poor