Ethics -- Fiction; Religion and sociology -- Fiction; Upper class families -- Fiction
“If I can do anything for you, let me know,” I told him. He said
nothing, he did not even smile. At this moment he was opportunely joined
by a man who had the appearance of a labour leader, and I walked away.
I was resentful; my mood, in brief, was that of a man who has done
something foolish and is inclined to talk to himself aloud: but the mood
was complicated, made the more irritating by the paradoxical fact
that that last look he had given me seemed to have borne the traces of
affection....
It is perhaps needless to add that the court reversed its former
decision.
XVI.
The Pilot published a series of sensational articles and editorials
about the Galligan matter, a picture of Galligan, an account of the
destitute state of his wife and family. The time had not yet arrived
when such newspapers dared to attack the probity of our courts, but
a system of law that permitted such palpable injustice because of
technicalities was bitterly denounced. What chance had a poor man
against such a moloch as the railroad, even with a lawyer of such
ability as had been exhibited by Hermann Krebs? Krebs was praised, and
the attention of Mr. Lawler's readers was called to the fact that Krebs
was the man who, some years before, had opposed single-handed in the
legislature the notorious Bill No. 709. It was well known in certain
circles--the editorial went on to say--that this legislation had been
drawn by Theodore Watling in the interests of the Boyne Iron Works,
etc., etc. Hugh Paret had learned at the feet of an able master. This
first sight of my name thus opprobriously flung to the multitude gave
me an unpleasant shock. I had seen Mr. Scherer attacked, Mr. Gorse
attacked, and Mr. Watling: I had all along realized, vaguely, that my
turn would come, and I thought myself to have acquired a compensating
philosophy. I threw the sheet into the waste basket, presently picked it
out again and reread the sentence containing my name. Well, there were
certain penalties that every career must pay. I had become, at last,
a marked man, and I recognized the fact that this assault would be the
forerunner of many.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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