"Wolffert! I was just thinking of you." He looked much older than I expected, and than, I thought, I myself looked; his face was lined and his hair had a few strands of silver at the temples; his eyes were deeper than ever, and he appeared rather worn. But he had developed surprisingly since we had parted at College. His manner was full of energy. In fact, as he talked he almost blazed at times. And I was conscious of a strange kind of power in him that attracted and carried me along with him, even to the dulling of my judgment. He had been away, he said, and had only just returned, and had heard of my success in "defeating the Argand Estate Combination"; and he had come to congratulate me. It was the first victory any one had ever been able to win against them. "But I did not defeat any combination," I said. "I only defeated Collis McSheen in his effort to take my client's bed and turn him and his children out in the street without a blanket." "There is the Combination, all the same," he asserted. "They have the Law and the Gospel both in the combine. They make and administer the one and then preach the other to bind on men's shoulders burdens, grievous to be borne, that they themselves do not touch with so much as a finger." "But I don't understand," I persisted; for I saw that he labored under much suppressed feeling, and I wondered what had embittered him. "Collis McSheen I know, for I have had some experience of him; and Gillis, the agent, was a cool proposition; but the Argand Estate? Why, McSheen strung out a list of charities that the Argand Estate supported that staggered me. I only could not understand why they support a man like McSheen." "The Argand Estate support charities! Yes, a score of them--all listed--and every dollar is blood, wrung from the hearts and souls of others--and there are many Argands." "How do you mean?" For he was showing a sudden passion which I did not understand. He swept on without heeding my question. "Why, their houses are the worst in the city; their tenements the poorest for the rent charged; their manufactories the greatest sweatshops; their corporate enterprises all at the cost of the working-class, and, to crown it all, they sustain and support the worst villains in this city, who live on the bodies and souls of the ignorant and the wretched." "Whom do you mean? I don't understand." "Why, do you suppose the Coll McSheens and Gillises and their kind could subsist unless the Argands and Capons of the Time supported them? They have grown so bold now that they threaten even their social superiors--they must rule alone! They destroy all who do not surrender at discretion." "Who? How?" I asked, as he paused, evidently following a train of reflection, while his eyes glowed. "Why, ah! even a man like--Mr. Leigh, who though the product of an erroneous system is, at least, a broad man and a just one." "Is he? I do not know him. Tell me about him." For I was suddenly interested.