Although Mr. Horace Vanney smiled pleasantly enough when Banneker presented himself at the office to make his report, the nature of the smile suggested a background more uncertain.
“Well, what have you found, my boy?” the financier began.
“A good many things that ought to be changed,” answered Banneker bluntly.
“Quite probably. No institution is perfect.”
“The mills are pretty rotten. You pay your people too little—”
“Where do you get that idea?”
“From the way they live.”
“My dear boy; if we paid them twice as much, they’d live the same way. The surplus would go to the saloons.”
“Then why not wipe out the saloons?”
“I am not the Common Council of Sippiac,” returned Mr. Vanney dryly.