hem--have got to go wandering about in a world that's
as strange to them as the surface of the moon, and as bare for them as
the Sahara desert."

"That's so," said Joe. "It's hard luck." But I saw he was thinking
only of himself and his narrow escape from having to give up his big
house and all the rest of it; that, soft-hearted and generous though
he was, to those poor chaps and their wives and children he wasn't
giving a thought. Wall Street never does--they're too remote, too
vague. It deals with columns of figures and slips of paper. It never
thinks of those abstractions as standing for so many hearts and so
many mouths, just as the bank clerk never thinks of the bits of metal
he counts so swiftly as money with which things and men could be
bought. I read somewhere once that Voltaire--I think it was
Voltaire--asked a man what he would do if, by pressing a button on his
table, he would be enormously rich and at the same time would cause
the death of a person away off at the other side of the earth, unknown
to him, and probably no more worthy to live, and with no greater
expectation of life or of happiness, than the average sinful,
short-lived human being. I've often thought of that dilemma as I've
watched our great "captains of industry." Voltaire's dilemma is
theirs. And they don't hesitate; they press the button. I leave the
morality of the performance to moralists; to me, its chief feature is
its cowardice, its sneaking, slimy cowardice.

"You've done a grand two hours' work," said Joe.

"Grander than you think," replied I. "I've set the tiger on to fight
the bull."

"Galloway and Roebuck?"

"Just that," said I. And I laughed. Then I started up--and sat down
again. "No, I'll deny myself the pleasure," said I. "I'll let Roebuck
find out when the claws catch in that tough old hide of his."

XVII.

On about the hottest afternoon of that summer I had the yacht take me
down the Sound to a point on the Connecticut shore within sight of
Dawn Hill, but seven miles further from New York. I landed at the
private pier of Howard Forrester, the only brother of Anita's mother.
As I stepped upon the pier I saw a fine looking old man in the
pavilion overhanging the water. He was dressed all in white except a
sky-blue tie that harmonized with the color of his eyes. He was
neither fat nor lean, and his smooth skin was protesting ruddily
against the age proclaimed by his wool-white hair. He rose as I came
toward him, and