“Legal etiquette!” exclaimed White scornfully, “etiquette that allows you lawyers to libel other men and twist and turn the truth to suit your case. Etiquette that justifies your taking fees you don’t earn, and neglecting cases when it suits you. For you and your brood there is no sort of penalty. You pose as good citizens. You talk yourselves into Parliament, and fawn on the Government when there are places to be given away. You sit on the Bench and draw a year’s salary for little more than half a year’s work, and send to penal servitude men in whose presence you ought to stand bare-headed.” “I can’t stay here and listen to your raving,” said Westwood angrily. “You’ve got the best of it at present. You’ve had us every way,” persisted White. “There’s nothing left for me in England. That suits your purpose, too. But, mark my words, Westwood, I haven’t done with you. Sooner or later the tables shall be turned. I swear by heaven they shall! Some day you’ll hear of me again!” Ending, he spat on him. Then, with a contemptuous gesture, turned away. Westwood, with a movement of disgust and anger, took two steps as if to follow him; then hesitated, stopped. Marcus White did not even condescend to turn his head, but, striding eastward, passed into the shadows of the London night. END OF PROLOGUE CHAPTER I LONDON IN 1910 An Englishman returning to his native land after an absence of twenty-five years, might not at first discover much difference in the look of London. There stood the old familiar landmarks--Buckingham Palace, St James’s, the Marble Arch, Apsley House, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, the National Gallery, the British Museum, St Paul’s, the Tower, the Monument, and many another well-remembered building. There were new hotels, new theatres, new buildings of all sorts, and at least one notable new thoroughfare. In the great arteries of business the old familiar thunder of the traffic rose louder than ever, with the modern addition of a new smell and a new noise--the smell and the whir of the motor-car. The mean streets were as mean as ever; the contrast between this and that locality more than ever noticeable. And the people, save for the scarcely perceptible change in fashion of dress, at first looked pretty much the same. There were more loafers, more wastrels, more sprawling scarecrows of humanity in the parks, and along the Embankment. The richest city in the world still had thousands and more thousands of homeless, miserable creatures in its midst, thousands whom the State knew not how to save for their own sake, or for the service of England.