"They say, Cal, that the warriors of the Dakota Indians used to eat the heart of a fallen foe to increase their courage and the New Zealander swallowed whole the eyes of his enemy that he might see further. Your business methods haven't made much progress beyond this stage, so far as I can see." Bivens stroked his silken beard with a nervous puzzled movement, rose and walked to the window. "Come here, Jim." He gazed for a moment over the city and slowly said: "Look over this sea of buildings rising like waves of the ocean and stretching away until its lines are lost in the clouds. The swarming thousands who live in them, what is their trade? Their business is by hook or crook, to get hold of the money simple-minded people have produced in other sections of the world. They were born to be the kings and rulers of ignorant masses. This kingship of mind over matter may be a hard law but it _is_ the law. There's no other meaning to those great buildings whose argus eyes gleam to-night in the shadows among the stars. I am simply doing what every man in New York or the world would do if he had the chance, the brains and the daring." "Not every man, Cal," was the steady answer. "There are men in New York who would cut their right arm off rather than do such things." "Show me one that would cut his right arm off rather than do them and I'll show you ten thousand who would cut off both arms and spare a leg to win the half of my success. I'm simply doing better than they can what they'd give their bodies and souls to do. That's why I'm above the law and people envy and worship me. If I am a devil, I am their creation. That's why I wield a power kings never knew. That's why I need regard no restraint of culture, experience, pride, class or rank. I am the product of the spirit of the age--the envy and despair of them all. I might be torn limb from limb by the black, creeping thing on the pavements below, that clutched at your throat that day, but for the fact that they all love money and lust after it with abject longing.