ted
to Margery. Beyond a hint to Raymer, he had told no one of the
comfortable assurance against want lying snugly secure in the small
strong-box in the Farmers' and Merchants' safety vault, and he was
reasonably certain that Raymer could not have passed the hint so fast
and so far as the town-wide limits to which the fact of the "well-fixed"
phrase had spread.

All this was very nourishing, not to say stimulating, to the starved
soul of a proletary. Not in any period of the past had he so fully
understood that an acute appreciation of the wrongs of the race is no
bar to an equally acute hungering and thirsting after the commonplace
flesh-pots, or to a very primitive and soul-satisfying enjoyment of the
same when they were to be had. Nevertheless, the reaction into
self-indulgence proved to be only temporary. God had been good to him,
enabling him to realize in miraculous fulfilment the ideal environment
and opportunity: therefore he would do his part, proclaiming the holy
war and fighting, single-handed if need be, the battle of the weak
against the strong.

So ran the renewed determination, dusted off and re-pedestaled after
many days. As to the manner of conducting the war against inequality and
the crime of plutocracy, the plan of campaign had been sufficiently
indicated in that white-hot moment of high resolves on the cargo-deck of
the _Belle Julie_. For the propaganda, there was his book; for the
demonstration, he would put the sacred fund into some industry where the
weight of it would give him the casting vote in all questions involving
the rights of the workers. It was absurdly simple, and he wondered that
none of the sociological reformers whose books he had read had
anticipated him in the discovery of such an obviously logical point of
attack.

With the re-writing of the book fairly begun, he was already looking
about for the practical opportunity when the growing friendship with
Edward Raymer promised to offer an opening exactly fulfilling the
experimental requirements. Raymer had over-enlarged his plant and was
needing more capital. So much Griswold had gathered from the talk of the
street; and some of Raymer's half-confidences had led him to suspect
that the need was, or was likely to become, imperative. It was only the
finer quality of friendship that had hitherto kept him from offering
help before it was asked, and thus far he had contented himself with
hinting to Raymer that he had money to invest.