"You have hardened, Obadiah," the lawyer continued relentlessly, "until you have grown as icy cold as the winter hills of your native lands. You have become cruel and rapacious in your business dealings. Of late years your commercial pathway is strewn with the wrecks of enterprises, which in no sense affected your own safety but which you have ruined through a sheer desire to dominate, a naked lust for power. Controlled by greed and avarice, no generous thought for your fellowmen actuates you. Steeped in your own selfishness, you sit in this room like--" shaking a forefinger at Obadiah the attorney hesitated, seeking a fitting condemnatory simile. Suddenly he concluded--"like a fat hog," and struck the desk of the alleged swine such a thump that the pork jumped. "Your memory will tell you how many times I have blocked your devilish schemes by convincing you that, if persisted in, the anti-trust laws must land you behind prison bars." Hezekiah in the pose of a stout statue of liberty, thrust up his right arm and clasped his left hand to his breast. He fixed accusing eyes upon the manufacturer and cried in a big voice, "If the world knew as much about you as I do, I am not so sure but they'd incarcerate you under the first law of nature--self-preservation." "Hush!" Obadiah paled visibly and with great nervousness viewed the open transom. Hezekiah leveled an arraigning hand at his employer. "Your actions should be such that you could rest in equanimity while they are cried aloud in the market places. The hour of reckoning is at hand, Obadiah. You believe yourself invincible. Blinded by a curtain of obstinacy you have not read your destiny. I tear it aside and expose your dark future. Your daughter, beautiful and affectionate, filled, as was her mother, with thoughts of others, discovers your true character and, turning from you, prefers the peace of a good conscience amidst humbler surroundings to a home of wealth in your company. She leaves you--alone." Obadiah winced. Hezekiah returned to his task with renewed vigor. "This morning your personal staff--men who have been with you for years--separate from you. I have no hesitation in assuming that they departed rankling beneath injustice. They leave you--alone. Now your attorney"--Hezekiah's voice was filled with feeling--"your adviser for years, tenders his resignation rather than to be a party to enforcing your selfish demands against your own daughter. He leaves you--alone." Stunned by this unexpected shot, Obadiah appeared to shrink in his chair. Highly pleased at the effect and sound of his own words, Hezekiah seized upon the order of the Board of Health and, shaking it in the face of the mill owner, waxed ever more eloquent. Floating away upon the wings of his own fervid oratory, he continued in ringing tones.