"I'm sorry you can't see your way to listen to any proposition from me, Doctor. I'm a practical man. I wish to incorporate your business into the general organization of the American Chemical Company on terms that will satisfy you——"
"Such terms can't be made, Bivens," the doctor said impetuously. "Your purpose is to squeeze money out of the people—the last dollar the trade will bear. That is your motto. I simply refuse. I refuse to devote my life to gouging out my neighbours' eyes to increase the profits of my trade. I put myself in his place, the place of the forgotten man, the consumer, the man you are organizing to exploit. The strong and the cunning can always take advantage of the weak, the ignorant, the foolish and generous. I have an imagination which makes vivid the sense of fellowship. I meet, in the crowds I pass, thousands of friends I never speak to, but the world is brighter because I've seen them."
"But if I don't see them?" the little black eyes mildly asked.
"Certainly! You can't see them. To you the city is merely a big flock of sheep to be sheared, while to me its myriad sounds are the music of a divine oratorio, throbbing with tears and winged with laughter! To you, the crowd are so many fools who may be buncoed out of their goods; while to me, some of their eyes, seen but for a moment, look into mine with infinite hunger and yearning, asking for friendship, comradeship, and love. And so, I call them my neighbours—these hurrying throngs who pass me daily. Because they are my neighbours, they are my friends. Their rights are sacred. I will not rob, maim, or kill them, and I will defend them against those who would!"
With the last sentence the stalwart figure towered above the little financier in a moment of instinctive hostility.
Bivens merely shrugged his shoulders and answered in measured, careful tones:
"Then I suppose I'll have to fight you whether I wish it or not?"
"Yes, and you knew that before you came here to-night. Your generous impulse for a settlement on my own terms is a shallow trick and it comes too late. I'm not fighting my own battle merely. I'm fighting for the people. You have heard that I am beginning a suit for damages against your Company——"
Bivens laughed in spite of himself, bit his lips, and looked at the doctor.
"I assure you I had heard nothing of such a suit, and now that I have it does not even interest me."