medical profession was composed of men who
devoted themselves to fighting the public welfare for life! We have that
kind of doctors--but we call them quacks. We don't allow 'em in our
medical societies. We punish them by ostracism. But the quack lawyers
who devote themselves to skinning the public--they are at the head of
the bar. They are made judges. They are promoted to supreme courts. A
damn nice howdy-do we're coming to when the quacks run a whole
profession. And Tom Van Dorn is a quack--a hair-splitting, owl-eyed,
venal quack--who doles out the bread pills of injustice, and the
strychnine stimulants of injustice and the deadening laudanum of
injustice, and falls back on the body of the decisions to uphold him in
his quackery. Justice demands that he take that fake corporation, made
solely to evade the law, and shake its guts out and tell the men who put
up this job, that he'll put them all in jail for contempt of court if
they try any such shenanigan in his jurisdiction again. That would be
justice. This--this decision--is humbug and every one knows it. What's
more--it may be murder. For men can't work on that slag dump ten hours a
day without losing their lives."

The captain tapped away at his sprocket. He had his own ideas about the
sanctity of the courts. They were not to be overthrown so easily. The
Doctor snorted: "Burn their bodies, and blear their minds, and then wail
about our vicious lower classes--I'm getting to be an anarchist."

He prodded his cane among the debris on the floor and then he began to
twitch the loose skin of his lower face and smiled. "Thank you, Cap," he
chirped. "How good and beautiful a thing it is to blow off steam in a
barn to your old army friend."

The Captain looked around and smiled and the Doctor asked: "What was
that you were saying about Violet Hogan?"

"I said I saw her to-day and she looked faded and old--she's not so much
older than my Emma--eh?"

"Still," said the Doctor, "Violet's had a tough time--a mighty tough
time; three children in six years. The last one took most of her teeth;
young horse doctor gave her some dope that about killed her; she's done
all the cooking, washing, scrubbing and made garden for the family in
that time--up every morning at five, seven days in the week to get
breakfast for Dennis--Emma would look broken if she'd had that." The
Doctor paused. "Like her mother--weak--vain--puts all of Denny's wages
on the children's backs--Laura says Vio