When the papers were signed, Mr. Bing rose and said, "Your Honor, there's one thing I want to say. I have spent most of my life in this town. I have built up a big business here and doubled the population. I have built comfortable homes for my laborers and taken an interest in the education of their children, and built a library where any one could find the best books to read. I have built playgrounds for the children of the working people. If I have heard of any case of need, I have done my best to relieve it. I have always been ready to hear complaints and treat them fairly. My men have been generously paid and yet they have not hesitated to destroy my property and to use guns and knives and clubs and stones to prevent the plant from filling its contracts and to force their will upon me. How do you explain it? What have I done or failed to do that has caused this bitterness?" "Mr. Bing, I am glad that you ask me that question," the old Judge began. "It gives me a chance to present to you, and to these men who work for you, a conviction which has grown out of impartial observation of your relations with each other. "First, I want to say to you, Mr. Bing, that I regard you as a good citizen. Your genius and generosity have put this community under great obligation. Now, in heading toward the hidden cause of your complaint, I beg to ask you a question at the outset. Do you know that unfortunate son of the Widow Moran known as the Shepherd of the Birds?" "I have heard much about him," Mr. Bing answered. "Do you know him?" "No. I have had letters from him acknowledging favors now and then, but I do not know him." "We have hit at once the source of your trouble," the Judge went on. "The Shepherd is a representative person. He stands for the poor and the unfortunate in this village. You have never gone to see him because--well, probably it was because you feared that the look of him would distress you. The thing which would have helped and inspired and gladdened his heart more than anything else would have been the feel of your hand and a kind and cheering word and sympathetic counsel. Under those circumstances, I think I may say that it was your duty as a neighbor and a human being to go to see him. Instead of that you sent money to him. Now, he never needed money. In the kindest spirit, I ask you if that money you sent to him in the best of good-will was not, in fact, a species of bribery? Were you not, indeed, seeking to buy immunity from a duty incumbent upon you as a neighbor and a human being?" Mr. Bing answered quickly, "There are plenty of people who have nothing else to do but carry cheer and comfort to the unfortunate. I have other things to do."