Brennan collapsed in his chair just as Judge Carter came in with his white mane flying and hot fire in his attitude. "What goes on here?" he stormed at James.
"I stopped your campaign."
"Now see here, you young—"
Judge Carter stopped abruptly, took a deep breath and calmed himself with a visible effort to control his rage. "James," he said in a quieter voice, "Can you repair the damage quickly?"
"Yes—but I won't."
"And why not?"
"Because one of the things my father taught me was the danger of allowing this machine to fall into the hands of ruthless men with political ambition."
"And I am a ruthless man with political ambition?"
James nodded. "Under the guise of studying me and my machine," he said, "you've been using it to train speakers, and to educate ward-heelers. You've been building a political machine by buying delegates. Not with money, of course, because that is illegal. With knowledge, and because knowledge, education, and information are intangibles and no legality has been established, and this is all very legal."
Judge Carter smiled distantly. "It is bad to elevate the mind of the average ward-heeler? To provide the smalltime politician with a fine grasp of the National Problem and how his little local problems fit into the big picture? Is this making a better world, or isn't it?"