JULIA. You couldn't be doing any better work than this. If we can make a Socialist of Laura Hegan...
JACK. Oh, stuff, Julia! I've given up chasing after will-o'-the-wisps like that.
JULIA.—But think what she could do!
JACK. Yes. I used to think what a whole lot of people could do. You might as well ask me to think what her father could do... if he only wanted to do it, instead of poisoning the life-blood of the city, and piling up his dirty millions. Go about this town and see the misery and horror... and think that it's Jim Hegan who sits at the top and reaps the profit of it all! It's Jim Hegan who is back of the organization... he's the real power behind Boss Grimes. It's he who puts up the money and makes possible this whole regime of vice and graft...
JULIA. My dear boy, don't be silly.
JACK. How do you mean? Isn't it true?
JULIA. Of course it's true... but why declaim to me about it? You forget you are talking to the champion female muckraker of the country.
JACK. Yes, that's right. But I don't want to meet these people socially. They mean well, a lot of them, I suppose; but they've been accustomed all their lives to being people of importance... to have everybody stand in awe of them, because of their stolen money, and all the wonderful things they might do with it if they only would.
JULIA. My dear Jack, did you ever observe anything of the tuft-hunter in me?
JACK. No, I don't know that I have. But it's never too late.