, be the
pipe large or small; and as I said before, New York has the biggest
gusher.

"We've got the money. So you may do the work and we allow you to get
enough to sustain life, and just as little more as possible. Sell at
our price, buy at our price--we've got you coming and going. You can't
get away.

"You're poor, you take what you can get to pay your debts. That keeps
down prices on what you sell. You've got families, you've got to play.
Yes, yes, quite right, the rules are not _entirely_ fair; we'll revise
them to-morrow, maybe, some time. Let _you_ do it? Tut, tut, no, no!
Why, you object to 'em! That won't do at all. Let the rules be revised
by their friends and beneficiaries, to-morrow, next day, by and by;
busy to-day, stockholders' meeting, dividend declared, good-by! You're
virtually _peons_. Fourth of July, elections and war-times you're
the sovereign people, Tommy this and Tommy-rot; but for all practical
purposes you're _peons_.

"We're rich, we can afford a scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours
tariff that keeps our prices up arbitrarily, that takes fifty dollars
out of your pockets to put in ours for every dollar it puts into the
national treasury."

"If the tariff was repealed," said Steve diffidently, "if we
raised money for the National Government, just as we do for county
government----"

"Hush-sh!" said Mitchell, shocked. "That's High Treason--that's
Unconstitutional! Some one will hear you! Then there's another.
_You_ sell at a sacrifice to pay your debts. If we get in debt that's
exactly what we won't do. A poor man goes broke, but a rich man goes
bankrupt. Ever think of that?

"That baby I spoke of will grow up, produce corn, cotton, cattle or
copper, maybe--but the net result of his life will be to enrich the
rich. If, by any means--industry, opportunity, invention, speculation,
dishonesty, chance or inheritance--he gets on top, then the workers
will be working for him by the same law. The fact remains that every
dollar's worth of betterment in the country increases the value of
city property one dollar, without effort to the owner. A city is an
artesian well. Take it from me, Thompson, a man of your ability ought
to make connections and get your little tin pail under."

Chapter V

"_A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome._"

Thompson sat in his room alone, meditating on Mitchell, statesman and
Political Economist. On the table la