In his frenzy he cast all the blame on RoBards, and roared that his own son-in-law had led the vandals into his warehouse. Such excuses as RoBards could improvise were but turpentine to his flaming wrath.
When RoBards offered the old man the shelter of his home in St. John’s Park, Jessamine was a very Lear of white-haired ire. But he accepted the proffer of Tuliptree Farm, because it would take him far from the scene of his downfall; it would afford him a wintry asylum where he could gnaw on his own bitterness.
Before he set forth into the snowy hills of Westchester, he made one stern demand upon RoBards:
“You call yourself a lawyer. Well, prove it, sir, by suing this diabolic city for its wanton destruction of my property!”
To appease him RoBards consented to undertake the case. He entered suit against the mayor and the aldermen in the Superior Court for two hundred thousand dollars.
CHAPTER X
Both fire and water conspired to embitter RoBards against New York, for both had laid personal hands upon his home and his career, invaded his very soul.
The first mood of the stricken city was one of despair. Then anger mounted. Scapegoats were sought. Some laid the blame on the piped gas that had come into vogue ten years before. Samuel Leggett had been the first to light his house with the explosive and his guests had felt that they took their lives in their hands when they accepted his hospitality. He had been one of the leaders of the Bronx River party, too.
Others complained that the fire had gone beyond control because the unchecked insolence and greed of the builders had led them to pile up structures as high as five or six stories. So an ordinance was passed forbidding future Babel towers to rise above the fourth floor.
The true cause of the fire was proclaimed from many pulpits as a magnificent rebuke from heaven upon a city in which extravagance had gone mad and sin flourished exceedingly. One text for a scathing sermon was: “Is there evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” Another preacher chose the fall of the tower of Siloam upon sinners as his parallel.