money. I
am the steward--and so long as I am the steward," he exclaimed, "I'm
going to do what I think is right, taking into consideration all the
difficulties that confront me."

He got up and took a turn or two on the pine-needles. Victoria regarded
him in silence. He appeared to her at that moment the embodiment of the
power he represented. Force seemed to emanate from him, and she
understood more clearly than ever how, from a poor boy on an obscure farm
in Truro, he had risen to his present height.

"I don't say the service is what it should be," he went on, "but give me
time--give me time. With all this prosperity in the country we can't
handle the freight. We haven't got cars enough, tracks enough, engines
enough. I won't go into that with you. But I do expect you to understand
this: that politicians are politicians; they have always been corrupt as
long as I have known them, and in my opinion they always will be. The
Northeastern is the largest property holder in the State, pays the
biggest tax, and has the most at stake. The politicians could ruin us in
a single session of the Legislature--and what's more, they would do it.
We'd have to be paying blackmail all the time to prevent measures that
would compel us to go out of business. This is a fact, and not a theory.
What little influence I exert politically I have to maintain in order to
protect the property of my stockholders from annihilation. It isn't to be
supposed," he concluded, "that I'm going to see the State turned over to
a man like Humphrey Crewe. I wish to Heaven that this and every other
State had a George Washington for governor and a majority of Robert
Morrises in the Legislature. If they exist, in these days, the people
won't elect 'em--that's all. The kind of man the people will elect, if
you let 'em alone, is--a man who brings in a bill and comes to you
privately and wants you to buy him off."

"Oh, father," Victoria cried, "I can't believe that of the people I see
about here! They seem so kind and honest and high-principled."

Mr. Flint gave a short laugh.

"They're dupes, I tell you. They're at the mercy of any political schemer
who thinks it worth his while to fool 'em. Take Leith, for instance.
There's a man over there who has controlled every office in that town for
twenty-five years or more. He buys and sells votes and credentials like
cattle. His name is Job Braden."

"Why," said Victoria, I saw him at Humphrey Crewe's garden-party.