'm
making a fair living. I don't want any more out of my neighbours. I've
shown you some of them to-night."

"I'll never forget them," Stuart broke in.

"We used to cry over Uncle Tom's woes," the doctor continued. "And yet
there are more than five million white people in America to-day who are
the slaves of poverty, cruel and pitiless, who haven't enough clothes
to keep warm, enough food to eat, and are utterly helpless and forsaken
in illness. The black slave always had food and shelter, clothes and
medicine. My business is to heal the sick--mind you! Shall I give it up
to exploit them?"

"But could you not use your greater wealth for greater good if you
joined the trust?" the lawyer asked.

"No. What we need to-day is not merely more money given to charity. We
need more heart and soul, manhood and womanhood, given in heroic
service. We need leaders whose voice shall rouse the conscience of the
nation that Justice shall be done."

"But the point is, Doctor, are you sure that you are on the side of
Justice in this big business battle that's now on between competition
and combination?" asked the younger man, quietly.

"What do you mean?"

"Why, that your building over there has an honourable history, but it's
old, a little shabby, and, judged by the standards of the new steel
structures of the Trust that are rising over the city, out-of-date.
Won't they make drugs more economically than you do and drive you to
the wall at last? Isn't this new law of cooperation the law of
progress--in brief, the law of God?"

"That remains to be proven. I don't believe it."

"Well, I do, and I think that if you fight, it will be against the
stars in their courses----"

"I'm going to fight," was the firm response.

"And you wanted my advice," Stuart laughed.

The doctor smiled at his own inconsistency.

"Well, I know I'm right, and I wished you to back me up. The law is on
my side, isn't it?"

"The written law, yes. But you are facing a bigger question than one of
statutory law."

"So I am, boy, so I am! That's why I gave you a glimpse to-night of the
world in which I live and work and dream."

"Bivens has put up to you a cold-blooded business proposition----"

"Exactly. And there are things that can't be bought and sold. I am one
of them!" The stalwart figure rose in simple dignity, and there was a
deep tremor in his voice as he paused.

"But I'm keeping you. It's nine o'clock--and somebody's waiting--eh,
boy?"