“Friend!” he said. “You mean a man that's useful to you. _You_ say so! _You_ say so! That's your meaning. Good's what's good for me. Sense is what agrees with me. Nothing's got any value that ain't valuable to that God-forsaken, whiskey-soaked 'me,' named Coglan, that's got no more value than to fertilise a patch of potatoes. Friend! You get another word. I got nothing to say to you. But I'll tell you this. I'll tell you what I think of Wood. He's got a reckoning coming. What is Wood? I'll tell you that he's the meeting point of two enemies--the corporations and the people, the rich and the poor. His job's to keep in with both. That's what his friendliness amounts to. His job's to sell the corporations what belongs to the people. And he'll grin at the people on one side, so! And he'll wink at the corporations on the other, so! And he'll say: 'How do, Johnny, and Billy, and Sammy?' So! And he'll say to the corporations, 'What'll you give for Johnny's hat?' So! Then he gives Johnny half what he gets for the hat, so! Then he's got Sammy and Billy to back the deal, so! Well, what's Wood! I've told you what he is. Friend of the poor! What do you know about it?” He dropped the shoe, shook his loose fingers in the air, and cried. “He's a cancer! Cut him out! He's an obstruction! Blow him up! What, then? Then I say this, Tom Coglan, and I say it's a good thing when damn rascals are afraid!” “Quotin' the Preacher?” said Coglan complacently. Hicks narrowed his black eyes again, and focussed them on Coglan, who turned away uneasily. Hicks went on: “What you'd ask, if you were quick enough with your point, is whether Wood ever did you a bad turn? No, he didn't. Nor said a word to me in his life, nor I to him, nor want to. Will you ask me what I got against him, then, or won't you, or are you too fat-headed to know what I'm talking about?” “Oi!” said Coglan. “Yer right. I'll ask ye that.” “And I'll say that so long as this 'me' of mine”--tapping his narrow chest--“ain't fertilising a patch of potatoes, a friend ain't going to mean any man that does me a good turn, nor an enemy mean anybody that does me a bad turn. A man that means no more'n that, ain't fit to fertilise turnips. That's my meaning, Tom Coglan.” “Oi! Quotin' the Preacher.” “Yes, I am, some of it.” He went back to his stitching sullenly. Coglan and Shays looked at each other and then stealthily at Hicks.