The doctor's look showed that he considered O'Neill's pleasantry in bad taste, to say the least of it. He had told Sam often enough, one would think, that he meant before long to put in a good businesslike system of fees, small fees....
The Commissioner was continuing: "Point is, V.V., there's nothing gained getting these people's backs way up. They 're sore now. A little tact, a little bit of--"
"Tact!"
"Sure thing. Look here, old boy, remember it's only a week since my report was in the papers, practically blacklisting those four plants, and I've already called personally on every one of 'em, putting it right up to 'em. You heard me at Heth's and the Pickle people's, yourself. I guess I put it up about as strong as could be done, hey? And that's all can be done till I get me some more law. Put it right square...."
But V. Vivian, gazing steadily over the chair-back, had obviously been stoking his inner fuel.
"Ah! Rousing public opinion's no use at all?... Why, don't you know that public opinion is the grandfather of your little statute-book laws? Don't you--"
"Yair. Know. See you say that in your letter."
"Well, it's a great truth!... How tactful will you feel some day, when one of those floors at the Heth Works collapses and kills a hundred people?"
Labor Commissioner O'Neill seemed unterrified by the grisly picture. He was strolling about the very large, bare, and strange-looking medical office, flicking cigar-ash where he would: a good-natured-looking Commissioner of thirty, wearing a glossy brown suit and strong yellow gloves. And his present pacific air was undoubtedly to his credit; certainly he had been annoyed when his eye first fell on the "Severe Arraignment," over his morning rasher....
"And that isn't the worst of it," shot the doctor again, flinging out an arm. "It's only a detail, I say, this factory end of it; only a symptom, don't you see? What we're dealing with is the most dangerous element in the life of this city! Tact!... When fire couldn't sweep through that new house of yours faster than the corrupting ideals of these people'll lick through this community!"