ccumulations as mere counters in the
games they were playing. The loss of dividends to them was poorly
compensated by reflections upon the development of the country, and the
advantage to trade of great consolidations, which inured to the benefit
of half a dozen insolent men.

In discussing these things in our little parliament we were not
altogether unprejudiced, it must be confessed. For, to say nothing of
interests of Mr. Morgan and my own, which seemed in some danger of
disappearing for the "public good," Mrs. Fletcher's little fortune was
nearly all invested in that sound "rock-bed" railway in the Southwest
that Mr. Jerry Hollowell had recently taken under his paternal care. She
was assured, indeed, that dividends were only reserved pending some sort
of reorganization, which would ultimately be of great benefit to all the
parties concerned; but this was much like telling a hungry man that if he
would possess his appetite in patience, he would very likely have a
splendid dinner next year. Women are not constituted to understand this
sort of reasoning. It is needless to say that in our general talks on the
situation these personalities were not referred to, for although Margaret
was silent, it was plain to see that she was uneasy.

Morgan liked to raise questions of casuistry, such as that whether money
dishonestly come by could be accepted for good purposes.

"I had this question referred to me the other day," he said. "A gambler
--not a petty cheater in cards, but a man who has a splendid
establishment in which he has amassed a fortune, a man known for his
liberality and good-fellowship and his interest in politics--offered the
president of a leading college a hundred thousand dollars to endow a
professorship. Ought the president to take the money, knowing how it was
made?"

"Wouldn't the money do good--as much good as any other hundred thousand
dollars?" asked Margaret.

"Perhaps. But the professorship was to bear his name, and what would be
the moral effect of that?"

"Did you recommend the president to take the money, if he could get it
without using the gambler's name?"

"I am not saying yet what I advised. I am trying to get your views on a
general principle."

"But wouldn't it be a sneaking thing to take a man's money, and refuse
him the credit of his generosity?"

"But was it generosity? Was not his object, probably, to get a reputation
which his whole life belied, and to get it by obliterating th