“I'm afraid I have wasted an evening for you, sir. I'm sorry. I hoped the troubles of those men, when you heard them at first hand, would interest you.”
“Interest me! Confound it all, you have wrecked my peace of mind! I knew it all before. But I'm selfish, like almost everybody else. I kept away where I couldn't hear about these things. Now, if I sleep soundly to-night I'll be ashamed to look up at my father's portrait when I walk into my office to-morrow morning. Why didn't you have better sense than to coax me into your infernal meeting?” He rapped his cane angrily against the curbstone as he strode on. “And the trouble with me is,” continued Mr. Converse, with much bitterness, “I know the conditions are such in this state that a meeting like that can be assembled in every city and town—and the complaints will be just and demand help. But there's no organization—it's only blind kittens miauling. It's damnable!”
“But this is the kind of country where some mighty quick changes can be made when the people do get their eyes open,” suggested the young man.
Mr. Converse merely grunted, tapping his cane more viciously.
They were on the frontier of the Eleventh Ward now. The brighter lights of the avenues of up-town blazed before them.
“Then you will not go into politics?” inquired Farr.
“I'd sooner sail for India with a cargo of hymn-books and give singing-lessons to Bengal tigers.”
“Good night, sir,” said Farr. He halted on the street corner which marked the boundary of the ward.
“Good night, sir!” replied Mr. Converse, striding on.
The young man watched him out of sight. He heard the angry clack of the cane on the stones long after the Honorable Archer Converse had turned the next corner.