“Good to animals! The bad man's invariable characteristic!” laughed Siward. “I'm kind to 'em, too. What else is he good to?”
“Everybody knows that he hasn't a poor relation left; not one. He is loyal to them in a rare way; he filled one subsidiary company full of them. It is known down town as the 'Home for Destitute Nephews.'”
“Seriously, Plank, the man must have something good in him.”
“Because of your theory?”
“Yes. I believe that nobody is entirely bad. So do the great masters of fiction.”
Plank said gravely: “He is a good son to his father. That is perfectly true—kind, considerate, dutiful, loyal. The financial world is perfectly aware that Stanley Quarrier is to-day the most unscrupulous old scoundrel who ever crushed a refinery or debauched a railroad! and his son no more believes it than he credits the scandalous history of the Red Woman of Wall Street. Why, when I was making arrangements for that chapel Quarrier came to me, very much perturbed, because he understood that all the memorial chapels for the cathedral had been arranged for, and he had desired to build one to the memory of his father! His father! Isn't it awful to think of!—a chapel to the memory of the briber of judges and of legislatures, the cynical defier of law!—this hoary old thief, who beggared the widow and stripped the orphan, and whose only match, as a great unpunished criminal, was that sinister little predecessor of his, who dreamed even of debauching the executive of these United States!”
Siward had never before seen Plank aroused, and he said so, smiling.
“That is true,” said Plank earnestly; “I waste little temper over my likes and dislikes. But what I know, and what I legitimately infer concerning the younger Quarrier is enough to rouse any man's anger. I won't tell you what I know. I can't. It has nothing to do with his financial methods, nothing to do with this business; but it is bad—bad all through! The blow his father struck at the integrity of the bench the son strikes at the very key-stone of all social safeguard. It isn't my business; I cannot interfere; but Siward, I'm a damned restless witness, and the old, primitive longing comes back on me to strike—to take a stick and use it to splinters on that man whom I am going down town to politely confer with!... And I must go now. Good-bye.... Take care of that ankle. Any books I can send you—anything you want? No? All right. And don't worry over Amalgamated Electric, for I really believe we are beginning to frighten them badly.”
“Good-bye,” said Siward. “Don't forget that I'm always at home.”
“You must get out,” muttered Plank; “you must get well, and get out into the sunshine.” And he went ponderously down-stairs to the square hall, where Gumble held his hat and gloves ready for him.