"My motive in starting a newspaper, if that is what you mean, is the plain one of making an honest if modest living. And, incidentally, while doing so, I have some small idea of being of public use. I have no personal grievance; but I am aggrieved, as every decent man must be, at the way the lawyers, the big financial operators, and the other blackguards have robbed the city," stated King plainly.
Judge Girvin, flushing, arose with dignity,
"I wish you good-day, sir," he said coldly, and at once withdrew.
Keith had been watching King with the keenly critical, detached, analytical speculation of the lawyer. He carried away with him the impression of a man inspired.
At the engine house, to which the discomfited delegation withdrew, there was more discussion.
"The man is within his legal rights so far," stated Judge Girvin. "If any of his statements are libellous, it is the duty of the man so libelled to institute action in the courts."
"He's too smooth for that," growled Jones.
"He'll bite off more than he can chew, if he keeps on," said Dick Blatchford comfortably. "He's stirring up hornets' nests when he monkeys with men like Yankee Sullivan. He's about due for an awful scare, one of these days, and then he'll be good."
"Do you know, I don't believe he'll scare," said Keith suddenly, with conviction.