"Looked at in a broad way, no," he answered. "To condemn and take the necessary real estate will cost nothing now to what it will ten years hence. And can you doubt that it will be needed then? Then why not set about it now? Why not ask the public to incommode itself for a while, to gain a permanent benefit? What they ask is only temporary; if we let things slip along from year to year, patching up and patching on, we'll never be better off. There was a man hired a place; in fifteen years of rent he paid the whole value of it and yet didn't own it. Better to have mortgaged and bought, in the first place. That's what I propose to do here."
"I understand," she said.
"I acknowledge," he went on, "that I appoint myself to do these things. Officious, isn't it? And I'm selfish about it. I want to do it my own way, and I want to have the credit of doing it. Oh, it's a job, it's a task!" As if carried away by enthusiasm, he rose and stood before her. "I tell you, Miss Blanchard," he cried, "I am just beginning the hardest fight of my life! But I like work, I enjoy a fight, and with the help of my friends (and you're the chief of them) I shall put it through!"
He took three steps away from her, and she watched him, not feeling her throbbing heart and quickened breath. As he turned again, she asked him how he meant to go about the work.
"By legislative help," he explained, coming back to his seat by her side. "Prepare to hear a good deal against me: that I've bought the common council and own seats in the legislature, for instance. It's long been said that the mayor's my own—for purposes of corruption, of course. Now you can see that my plans are too big for me to carry out by myself, or even for the corporation to do alone. I must have public money to help me. And besides that, more than that, I must be granted the application of a principle which has seldom, almost never, been allowed out of the hands of the legislature or the courts."
"What is that?" she asked.
He answered, "Eminent domain!"
"To be able," she asked in astonishment, "by yourself to condemn and take land?"
"Yes," he answered confidently.