"And find concealment behind the convenient screen of sentimentality," completed Cosden.
"Exactly. I wouldn't spend any time on it at all except that it seems so important to the people themselves."
Cosden laughed so spontaneously that Thatcher looked up quickly, trying to grasp the unintended humor in his last remark. His companion was hugely amused and made no effort to conceal it.
"Well?" Thatcher interrogated good-naturedly; "aren't you going to let me in on it?"
"It's funny, that's all," Cosden replied; "but it's perfectly good business either way you work it. Simply a question of how you sit when you have your picture taken."
Thatcher's face demanded further explanation, but before Cosden spoke again by way of enlightenment his amused expression disappeared, and he became serious.
"I don't know as it is so funny, after all," he said. "When you spoke of being interested in this trolley scheme principally because it was so important to the people, I couldn't help thinking how inconsistent you were."
"Inconsistent?" Thatcher echoed.
"Suppose you owned that line of stage-coaches, and leased it out just as you do these machines. Then some men came along and proposed to build a trolley-line which would push the stage-coaches off the map. That's what our new machines will do to your old ones. In one case you're interested in the improved method because it is so important to the people; in the other you say, 'The people be damned.' But you're no different from the rest of us. Our so-called consistency is as full of holes as a sieve; but it's always the other fellow who sees it. We're too close to ourselves to get the perspective."
"I am relieved," Thatcher said. "If it is only a question of inconsistency I'll take a chance on holding my own. But sometimes we are not so inconsistent as we seem. The 'other fellow' thinks he has a joke on us when in reality he only sees part of the situation. This 'nefarious trust,' for example which you cite as a hideous illustration of grinding monopoly, took hold of an industry, twenty years ago, and brought system out of chaos, shouldered all the risk, taught manufacturers how to make money out of their business, and enabled small factories to become big ones by leasing them machines which they could not afford to buy. The trust has prospered, but so have the manufacturers. Who shall say that those who took the risks are not entitled to the rewards, or that the system introduced and developed by the trust was not as much in the interests of the people as this trolley-line we are proposing?"