“Mr. Malleson,” replied the rector; he was still calm and deliberate, “you do me an injustice. I have done no harm to your son. But that is neither here nor there. I came to appeal to you, not for myself nor for your son, but in behalf of your starving workmen. Will you take them back?”
“I will not take them back. They left me without cause. They have assassinated my character. They have tried to wreck my business.”
“They may both wreck your business and destroy your property in the end.”
“Is that a threat, Mr. Farrar?”
“I make no threats; God forbid! But, since you will not listen to reason, nor be moved by pity, I must tell you frankly that in my judgment you have brought this calamity on yourself; and if you persist in the course you are pursuing, a still worse calamity is sure to follow.”
The president of the manufacturing company rose to his feet, white with rage.
“Sir,” he exclaimed, “the interview is at an end!”
“As you choose,” replied the minister. “But beware of the next messenger who comes. For, instead of bringing to you the olive branch which I have brought, he may bring to you the rioter’s club, and the incendiary’s torch.”
It was doubtless a rash thing for him to say. But when his heart was hot the rector of Christ Church did not pause to consider well the words he should utter.
He left the office of the president and strode back to his home under lowering skies, through wet and dingy streets, moved by such indignation and despair as had never in his life before found lodgment in his breast. Yet he caught himself, ever and anon, wondering whether the charge that Richard Malleson had so bluntly and brutally thrust at him was in any respect true; the charge that he himself, by preaching a gospel of discontent, had helped to bring on this industrial war. He tried to evade the question, to dismiss it from his mind, but it would not down. Was he or was he not, in any degree, responsible for this economic tragedy? Mary Bradley had declared that the guilt of it lay on her soul. This was doubtless untrue. But how much of the guilt of it lay on his? Here, indeed, was food for thought.