"Rosie Keating says I'd make a better policeman than lawyer. She's sore at me for taking Miss Throckmorton to Mam' Galli's the other night. Fellow stood on the piano and sang the derndest song I've ever heard. But, gee, I don't think Miss Throck was on. She didn't seem to notice, I mean. Say, on the dead, do you think you could identify that fellow?" "Look here, boy, if anyone ever asks you whether I'd know that man's face if I saw it again, you just say that I'd know it in a thousand. I saw it plainly." Eddie gulped suddenly and looked more interested than ever. "Do you think they'll get him?" "They will if he talks too much." "I hope so. Say, how's that new patent coming on?" "I'm not making a patent. I'm making a model. It's nearly completed. The strike in the shops is holding me back with it. Curse these strikes." "Oh, they bust 'em up mighty quick. There hasn't been a big one on since Debs engineered his and Cleveland called out the troops." "Boy, you wait a few years and you'll see a strike that will paralyse you. Look at these teamsters. They're powerful now. They'll get licked, but they'll come back. When the next big money panic comes--it'll be in my day, too--you'll see the streets of Chicago running with blood. These fellows will go after the rich, and they'll get 'em. You will live to see the day when women who wear diamonds around their throats will have harsh, horny ringers there instead. There will be rich men's blood on every paving stone and beautiful necks will be slit with less mercy than marked the French butchery years ago. That's my prophecy. Some day you'll recall it to mind, especially if you happen to become very prosperous. It's bound to come. Now get out. I have a lot of writing to do." Eddie snickered. "What will the law be doing all this time?" "Bosh! The law can't even capture Mrs. Cable's assailant. Do you know what the human lust for blood is? Take an enraged man, doesn't he hunger for blood? He wants to kill and he does kill. Well, he is but an atom--an individual. Now, can you imagine what it will mean when a whole class of people, men and women, are forced to one common condition--the lust for blood? The individual lusts, and so will the mass. The rage of the mass will be the same as the fury of the individual. It will be just like one tremendous man of many parts rioting for---" The outer door opened suddenly and an old gentleman entered. "Is Mr. Bansemer here?" he asked, removing his silk hat nervously. "Yes, Mr. Watts. I'll tell him you are here." Watts, the banker, confronted Bansemer a moment later, an anxious, hunted look in his eyes. John Watts was known as one of the meanest men in the city. No one had bested him in a transaction of any kind. As hard as nails and as treacherous as a dog, he was feared alike by man and woman.