"I know what you don't know with all your religion, Mr. Dexter; I know what the Holy Ghost is now. I have seen it. The Holy Ghost is that divine spark in every human soul--however life has smudged it over by circumstance--that rises and envelopes a human creature in a flame of sacrificial love for his kind and makes him joy to die to save others. That's the Holy Ghost--that's what is immortal." He clenched his great hickory fist and hit the table and lifted his face again, crying: "I saw Dennis Hogan walk up to Death smiling that Irish smile. I saw him standing with a ton of loose dirt hanging over him while he was digging me out! I saw Evan Davis--little, bow-legged Evan Davis--go out into the smoke alone--alone, Mr. Dexter, and they say Evan is a coward--he went out alone and brought back Casper Herdicker's limp body hugged to his little Welsh breast like a gorilla's--and saved a man. I saw Dick Bowman do more--when the dirt was dropping from the slipping, working roof into my mouth and eyes, and might have come down in a slide--I lay there and watched Dick working to save me and I heard him order his son to hold a shovel over my face--his own boy." Grant shuddered and drew the child closer to him, and looked at the group near him with wet eyes. "Ira Dooley and Tom Williams and that little Italian went on their bellies, half dead from the smoke, out into death and brought home three men to safety, and would have died without batting an eye--all three to save one lost man in that passage." He beat the table again with his fist and cried wildly: "I tell you that's the Holy Ghost. I know those men may sometimes trick the company if they can. I know Ira Dooley spends lots of good money on 'the row'; I know Tom gambles off everything he can get his hands on, and that the little Dago probably would have stuck a knife in an enemy over a quarter. But that doesn't count." The young man's voice rose again. "That is circumstance; much of it is surroundings, either of birth or of this damned place where we are living. If they cheat the company, it is because the company dares them to cheat and cheats them badly. If they steal, it is because they have been taught to steal by the example of big, successful thieves. I've had time to think it all out.