Stacey went back to work. He was not particularly satisfied with the interview and he felt rather soiled mentally. The threat of the story, not the story itself, was what he had wanted to use. Once set going, the story would only be punishment, and he was not at all interested in punishment.
But that evening during dinner Mr. Carroll was called to the ’phone, and when he returned he was jubilant.
“Good news, Stacey!” he cried, slapping his son on the back. “Colin Jeffries has come around. Said you came up to see him and repeated the things I’d said, told him how strongly I felt about it (why didn’t you tell me?), and afterward he got to thinking things over till at last he said: ‘To hell with principles! It’s been my experience that if Edward Carroll wants a thing done the thing must be right.’ The strike’s off. It’ll be in the papers to-morrow.”
Mr. Carroll settled himself again in his chair and beamed. As for Catherine, she uttered a cry of joy, then suddenly looked across at Stacey. But he avoided her eyes. However, though he felt smirched, he also felt a fierce exultation.
Mr. Carroll leaned back in his chair. “Another thing Colin said, Stacey,” he remarked proudly, “was that you were wasted on a job like architecture, that you had—let’s see!—a concentrated directness of purpose that would have got you most anywhere in business. I was to be sure to tell you that.”
Stacey had looked up at this, startled. By Jove! the man was a good sport! Stacey was filled with admiration, and it struck him that he had been making Edwards’ mistake, had been seeing Colin Jeffries as a symbol, not just as an individual. Always this haze of legend hanging about everything! You had to tear it off.
Later, when he had gone upstairs to bed, he fell to meditating on the whole affair. How incongruously people and things were tangled! The great street-railway strike had come to an abrupt end because a year ago he, Stacey Carroll, had run off to a disreputable road-house with a strange reckless girl.
The entire front page of the paper next morning was occupied by Mr. Jeffries’ statement. It was a masterpiece. It began by recapitulating the facts—the doubled and tripled cost of material, the city council’s refusal to allow a ten-cent fare, the company’s dilemma,—to the accompaniment of persuasive figures. The beau geste that followed was all the more effective for their convincingness. There were other things than gain in this world. There were human beings. We were our brothers’ keepers. (Stacey thought of Edwards’ remark, and grinned.) We owed them a right to a decent existence even at the cost of sacrifice to ourselves. A corporation was not a soulless machine. It had not, save in theory, any existence of its own. (Stacey nodded approval. Good point!) It was simply a group of individuals banded together, in accordance with the law, for the prosecution of a legitimate business and for the public service. The Vernon Street-Railway Company was such a group; and the members of this group now, after a careful investigation of conditions, made by themselves and by disinterested friends (here complimentary mention was made of Mr. Carroll’s generous initiative), felt that they could not at present, with harsh winter already here, require their employees to live on a reduced wage. This decision was taken though it meant not even a nominal profit but a considerable monthly deficit for the company. Every effort at retrenchment would be made. Economy would be rigid. The service might fall off slightly, but the public were prayed to be lenient, remembering that the company was failing in its business duty in order to accomplish a larger human duty.
There were also editorials.
Stacey felt no disdain,—only amusement and admiration. Mr. Jeffries’ telephoned message of last evening had revealed the man as not afraid to face the truth squarely. He might live in an atmosphere of magniloquent lies; that was because they served his purpose. At least, he was not himself deceived by them.