"You betcher--hurt their feelings, anyway, if it don't do anything else. I guess you had it right, that a heavy dose of public opinion is--"
"Well, no," said V.V., frankly--"no.... Another letter would be a mistake, at just this stage of the game--a great tactical blunder--"
"Why d'you think that?" said Sam O'Neill, rather taken aback.
"Why do I think it, you say? Well, I--I know it."
"Well, I don't know it. It's a blame good thing to make these swell obstructionists feel ashamed of themselves. Let 'em see their names right in print. As for damages, Heth's shown that he's afraid to go into court--"
But V.V. waved aside the idea of a suit. "The whole thing," said he, "is merely a question of tactics. Things are going along very satisfactorily as they are. There's a drift on, a tendency--you might say. The clothing people have come in. Magees have come in. Why, they've agreed to do every blessed thing you asked--fireproofed stairways and fire-doors, ventilators and rest-rooms--"
"That makes the attitude of these others all the worse. I tell you they've practically told me to go to hell."
The good-natured Commissioner spoke with a rare touch of irritation. To have bagged all four of the offending local plants, without the aid of law and relying only on personal influence and tactful pressure, would undoubtedly have been a great card for the O'Neill administration. Moreover, Mr. Heth's manner of superior indifference yesterday had been decidedly galling.
"Well, give 'em a little more time," counselled V.V., lighting a pipe which looked as if it had had a hard life. "You must make some allowance for their point of view, Sam. Here's Mr. Heth, just to take an example,--not making much this year, you say, and mortgaged up pretty well, besides. Well! Just when he's probably getting worried about his book-keeping, down you drop on him and ask him as a favor to you to put up a new building, which is practically what--"
"He'll have to do it, too. If he don't do it now, I'll have a law next year that'll get him right in the neck."