"I'm going to regain my self-respect! I'm going to assert myself as master of my own home. I'm going to tell Stewart Morrison that I have business with him, and that I'll attend to it in a strictly business office, later, where he can't insult my friends and abuse my hospitality!" "Wait a minute! I've had an acute attack of it, too, this evening--the same ailment, but I'm getting over it. Don't lose your head and your temper, both at the same time. You're not in the right trim just now to go against that bullhead. Let's estimate him squarely. That's always my plan in business." Mr. Daunt plucked a cigar from a box on the table and lighted up leisurely, soothing himself into a matter-of-fact mood. Corson waited with impatience, but his politician's caution began to tug on the bits, moderating the rush of his passion, and he took a cigar for himself. "Outside of this petty mayor business, does Morrison cut any figure--have any special power in state politics?" the banker asked. "Not a particle--not as a politician. He doesn't know the A B C's of the game." "How much influence can he wield as an agitator, as he threatens to become?" Corson's declaration was less emphatic. "We're conservative, the mass of us, in these parts. Starting trouble isn't wielding influence, Daunt. He'll be going up against the political machine that has always handled this state safely and sanely--and we know what to do with trouble-makers." "This communistic stand of his certainly discredits him with the corporations, also. Despeaux has been doing good work, and practically all of 'em have come over to the Consolidated camp. Of course, Morrison is antagonizing the banking interests, too. Is he a heavy borrower?" "He doesn't borrow. He works on his own capital. St. Ronan's is free and clear," admitted the Senator, crossly. "That's too bad! Calling loans is always effective in improving a radical's opinions. Then this friend, whom you have held up to me as so important in our plans----" "I did consider him important, Daunt! I do now. I know him. I have seen him go after things, ever since he was a boy. That storage-commission scheme is his own device and, as the head of it, he occupies a strategic position." "But it's only a scheme; he has no actual organization of the people behind it." "Confound it! I'm afraid he will have!" "It's an impractical dream--trying to establish such shadowy ownership of what vested capital under private control must naturally possess and develop. We have sound business on our side." "It may not seem so much like a dream after he puts that report into the legislature," complained the Senator. "I tell you, I know Stewart Morrison. He indulges in visions, but he'll back this particular one up with so many facts and figures that it will make a treasury report look like a ghost-story by comparison. Talk about sound business! That's Morrison's other name!" "What's going to be done with that report, Corson?"