“I'll allow you to set me down in any class which seems fitting from your point of view,” replied the doctor, stiffly. “But if that lunatic, as you call him, got an angle-worm or a frog's leg out of his tap I don't blame him for breaking up a meeting of the city government which will tolerate the water which is being pumped through the city mains just now.” “We're working on the filtering-plant--it will be all right in a little while. It got out of hand before we realized it,” said the colonel, now a bit apologetic. “In this crisis your filter amounts to about that!” The doctor snapped a pudgy finger into a plump palm. “The river-water in this state has been poisoned. You must go into the hills--to the lakes, Colonel Dodd.” “You don't mean to say that you recommend that in your report, Doctor?” “Absolutely--emphatically.” “Without stopping to think of the millions it will cost my company to build over its plants?” “It has come to a point where it isn't a question of money, Colonel.” “We can't afford it.” “Then let the cities and towns of the state buy in their water-plants and do it.” “Good Jefferson! Don't you know that every city and town in this state where we have a water-plant has already exceeded its debt limit of five percent?” “Do I understand you as intimating, Colonel Dodd, that there is no help for this present condition of affairs?” “Look here--I'm neither a Herod nor a Moloch, even if some of the crack-brained agitators in this state will have it that way,” protested the magnate, with heat. “Are you going to print that report before you have given us time to turn around?” “With one hundred deaths a day from typhoid fever in this state, Colonel, that matter of time becomes mighty important.” “Look here, Dohl, don't you remember that it was my indorsement that gave you your job?” “I do, Colonel Dodd. But I'm a physician, not a politician.” “I see you're not,” retorted the colonel, dryly. “But you're a member of our political party, and you know that the Consolidated and its associate interests are the backbone of that party. There are a lot of soreheads in this state, and we're having a devil of a time to hold 'em in line. Every savings-bank in this state, furthermore, holds bonds of the Consolidated. Do you want to start a panic? You've got to be careful how you touch the first brick standing in a row. Dohl, you leave that report with me. I'll go over it. I'll take the matter up with the directors. We'll move as fast as possible.” The doctor hesitated, stroking the folds of his manuscript. “You're not doubting my word, are you?” demanded the colonel. “No, sir!” Even the physician's sense of duty did not embolden him to persist under this scowl of the man of might. The colonel took the document from Dr. Dohl's relaxing hands and shoved it into a pigeonhole of the big desk. “You must understand that pipe-lines to lakes cannot be laid in a minute as a child strings straws, Doctor,” admonished the magnate.