g with
men like you, philosophy or no philosophy? You get us between the
upper and the nether mill stones. You are cosmopolitan; M. Jean Jacques
Barbille is a provincial; and you, because he has soul enough to forget
business for a moment and to speak of things that matter more than money
and business, you grind him into powder."

M. Mornay shook his head and lighted his cigar again. "There you are
wrong, Maitre Fille. It is bad policy to grind to powder, or grind at
all, men out of whom you are making money. It is better to keep them
from between the upper and nether mill-stones.

"I have done so with your Barbille. I could give him such trouble as
would bring things crashing down upon him at once, if I wanted to be
merely vicious in getting my own; but that would make it impossible for
me to meet at dinner my friend Judge Carcasson. So, as long as I can, I
will not press him. But I tell you that the margin of safety on which he
is moving now is too narrow--scarce a foot-hold. He has too much under
construction in the business of his life, and if one stone slips
out, down may come the whole pile. He has stopped building the
cheese-factory--that represents sheer loss. The ash-factory is to close
next week, the saw-mill is only paying its way, and the flour-mill and
the farms, which have to sustain the call of his many interests, can't
stand the drain. Also, he has several people heavily indebted to him,
and if they go down--well, it depends on the soundness of the security
he holds. If they listened to him talk philosophy, encouraged him to
do it, and told him they liked it, when the bargain was being made, the
chances are the security is inadequate."

The Clerk of the Court bridled up. "Monsieur, you are very hard on a man
who for twenty-five years has been a figure and a power in this part of
the province. You sneer at one who has been a benefactor to the place
where he lives; who has given with the right hand and the left; whose
enterprise has been a source of profit to many; and who has got a savage
reward for the acts of a blameless and generous life. You know his
troubles, monsieur, and we who have seen him bear them with fortitude
and Christian philosophy, we resent--"

"You need resent nothing, Maitre Fille," interrupted the Big Financier,
not unkindly. "What I have said has been said to his friend and the
friend of my own great friend, Judge Carcasson; and I am only anxious
that he should be warned by someo