just
once, before I died I could be _sure_ that I had done anything that was
of any use to anybody." He went on, nodding his head, "What struck me so
about what Mr. Bayweather said is that I've often thought about doctors
myself, and envied them. They take money for what they do, of course,
but they miss lots of chances to make more, just so's to be of some use.
I've often thought when they were running the prices up and up in our
office just because they could, that a doctor would be put out of his
profession in no time by public opinion, if he ever tried to screw the
last cent out of everybody, the way business men do as a matter of
course."

Mr. Crittenden protested meditatively against this. "Oh, don't you think
maybe there's a drift the other way among decent business people now?
Why, when Marise and I were first trying to get it clear in our own
heads, we kept it pretty dark, I tell you, that we weren't in it only
for what money we could make, because we knew how loony we'd seem to
anybody else. But don't you see any signs that lately maybe the same
idea is striking lots of people in America?"

"No, I do _not_!" said Mr. Welles emphatically. "With a profiteer on
every corner!

"But look-y-here, the howl about profiteers, isn't that something new?
Isn't that a dumb sort of application to business of the doctor's
standard of service? Twenty years ago, would anybody have thought of
doing anything but uneasily admiring a grocer who made all the money he
could out of his business? 'Why shouldn't he?' people would have thought
then. Everybody else did. Twenty years ago, would anybody have dreamed
of legally preventing a rich man from buying all the coal he wanted,
whether there was enough for everybody, or not?"

Mr. Welles considered this in unconvinced silence. Mr. Crittenden went
on, "Why, sometimes it looks to me like the difference between what's
legitimate in baseball and in tennis. Every ball-player will try to
bluff the umpire that he's safe when he knows the baseman tagged him
three feet from the bag; and public opinion upholds him in his bluff if
he can get away with it. But like as not, the very same man who lies
like a trooper on the diamond, if he went off that very afternoon to
play tennis would never dream of announcing 'out' if his opponent's ball
really had landed in the court,--not if it cost him the sett and
match,--whether anybody was looking at him or not. It's 'the thing' to
try to get anythin