"What Miller has done," said Brewster, "is but a natural result when a working man goes down into the pit of stock gambling. The hope in that business is to obtain money without earning it. It is a kind of lunacy. In a few months, men so engaged lose everything like a steady poise to their minds. They take on all the attributes which distinguish the gambler. Their ideas are either up in the clouds or down in the depths. Worst of all, they forget that a dollar means so many blows, so many drops of sweat, that a dollar, when we see it, means that sometime, somewhere, to produce that dollar, an honest dollar's worth of work was performed, that when that dollar is transferred to another, another dollar's worth of work in some form must be given in return, or the eternal balance of Justice will be disarranged. Miller reached the point where he did not prize his own dollars at their true value. It ought not to be expected that he would be more careful of ours."
"Colonel, what is your judgment about the business?" Carlin asked.
"It seems to me," was the reply, "that when he went away Miller insulted all of you—all of us, for that matter. His conduct assumes that we are all pawnbrokers who would go into mourning over a few dollars lost."
"Oh, no, I think not," said Strong. "Miller is a sensitive, high-strung man. He has been in all sorts of dangers and difficulties and has never faltered. At last he found himself in a place where, for the first time, he felt his honor wounded, and his courage failed him. He is not running away from us, he is trying to run away from himself."
"What is your judgment, Professor?" asked Carlin.
"As they say out here, Miller got off wrong," said the Professor; "and he seems blinded by the mistake so much that he cannot see his best way back."
"Harding, why are you so still?" asked Carlin.
"I am sorry for Miller," said Harding. "He is the best-hearted man in the world."
"It is a most unpleasant business. What shall we do about it?" asked Carlin. "I wish all would express an opinion."
"What ought to be done, Carlin?" asked Wright.