ed insolently toward the exit. The majority of the men were
grinning. Tear down this place? Kill the goose that laid the golden
egg? It was preposterous. Why, no man had ever done a thing like that.
It was to cut off one's nose to spite one's face. It was a case of
bluff, pure and simple. Winter was nearly three months off. By that
time this smart young man would be brought to his senses. So they
began filing out in twos and threes, their blouses and dinner-pails
tucked under their arms. Many were whistling lightly, many were
smoking their pipes, but there were some who passed forth silent and
grave. If this young man was a chip of the old block, they had best
start out at once in search of a new job.

Bennington jumped down from his impromptu platform and closed the
ponderous doors. Then he hurried to the main office, where he notified
the clerks what had happened. He returned to his private office. He
arranged his papers methodically, closed the desk, and sat down. His
gaze wandered to the blue hills and rolling pastures, and his eyes
sparkled; but he forced back what had caused it, and presently his
eyes became dry and hard.

"'You and your actress and her lover'," he murmured softly. "My God, I
am very unhappy!"

Chapter XV

The anonymous letter is still being written. This is the weapon of the
cowardly and envious heart, so filled with venom and malice that it
has the courage or brazenness to go about piously proclaiming the word
duty. Beware of the woman who has ink-stains on her fingers and a duty
to perform; beware of her also who never complains of the lack of
time, but who is always harking on duty, duty. Some people live close
to the blinds. Oft on a stilly night one hears the blinds rattle never
so slightly. Is anything going on next door? Does a carriage stop
across the way at two o'clock of a morning? Trust the woman behind the
blinds to answer. Coming or going, little or nothing escapes this
vigilant eye that has a retina not unlike that of a horse, since it
magnifies the diameter of everything nine times. To hope for the worst
and to find it, that is the golden text of the busybody. The busybody
is always a prude; and prude signifies an evil-minded person who is
virtuous bodily. They are never without ink or soft lead-pencils. Ink
has accomplished more wonderful things than man can enumerate; though
just now a dissertation on ink in ink is ill-timed.

To return again to the anonymous letter