BENEATH THE SKIN
Stuart rose next morning with a dull headache. The more he had puzzled over the speech he should make to the mob besieging Bivens's bank the more doubtful seemed the outcome. Still to remain silent longer, amid the accusations which were being daily hurled at him, was intolerable. He was possessed with a fierce desire to meet at least one of his foes face to face.
He took his breakfast early and walked down town to his office through the Bowery and Centre Street as he was in the habit of doing occasionally. Everything rubbed him the wrong way this morning. Every sight and sound of the city seemed to bruise and hurt. Never before had the ugliness of the elevated railroad struck him with such crushing hopelessness. He felt that its rusty hideous form, looming against the sky line, was a crime. The crowded trolley cars, the rushing, rattling lines of drays, the ugly, dirty, cheap-looking people hurrying past—it was all horrible!
The sense of loneliness and isolation grew upon him—a sort of dumb hatred of all these unthinking stolid beasts of burden who were bending their backs daily to their stupid tasks, trampling each other to death, too, in their own mad sordid scramble for money.
He paused at the Brooklyn Bridge and stood in silence while the black torrent of unmeaning faces, whose expression this morning was distinctly inhuman, rolled past and spread out into the square and streets.
He was glad for the moment that not one of them knew him, though he was daily giving his life to their service.
He turned and pushed his way through the throngs, crossed the City Hall Square and in a few minutes reached the Broadway corner on which the Bivens bank stood. Its magnificent marble façade, crowned with gilded dome, gleamed white and solemn in the morning sun like some proud temple man had built to the worship of God.
The crowd about its doors, which had not yet been opened, was unusually large and turbulent. With the aid of two officers he pushed and fought his way unrecognized through the mob and at last reached the side entrance of the bank.
Bivens, watching from within, opened the door and he stepped inside.
"Jim, if you try to speak to that gang of madmen you're a fool," the financier began, with a scowl. "What they need is not eloquence, they need a club."