"The keen eye of this great Commonwealth has found you out. Now does its strong right arm, the law, reach forth to protect the weak and restrain the strong. In ardent pursuit of evil it draws ever nearer and nearer, until at last it embraces even the waste--" Hezekiah stopped short. A look of horror, loathing and disgust swept his countenance. He was inexpressibly shocked at the extraordinary conclusion to which his simile hastened. To Obadiah, the repugnance in Hezekiah's face depicted antipathy towards himself. For years the attorney had been the manufacturer's one friend. He had admired the lawyer's learning and leaned upon his judgment. For years he had known that words were playthings in his legal adviser's mouth; but that look was too much. The aversion and detestation displayed crushed the mill owner. Humbled to the dust he reviewed the calamities which Hezekiah had so ably painted. With due allowance for rhetorical exaggeration, they frightened him. He must save Hezekiah to pilot him through the darkness. Sick and weary and miserable but above all else lonely, Obadiah arose from his desk and confronted the lawyer. "Hezekiah, you will not leave me?" he begged, in pitiful humiliation, his anger gone. The placid Hezekiah was shaken to the depths of his soul at the catastrophe which had befallen him. Vain of his oratorical ability, he regarded his address to Obadiah as a worthy effort until his final bull. Such slips are remembered by one's professional brethren until the end of one's life. He took his grievance out on the abased Obadiah. "I'm tired," he growled, "tired of your greed and selfishness, tired of your confounded pigheadedness and the continual scrap in which you live. You're old, Obadiah. I bet you ten dollars that the hearse is in use which will haul you to the cemetery." Obadiah shuddered and displayed no disposition to take the wager. Hezekiah went on testily. "You worry about money until every one hates and despises you. It's bad for my reputation to work for you--to be caught in your company. I have saved enough to keep me comfortable until I die and I'm going to take it easy. I want to quit fighting law suits and go to compromising." A glint of his usual humor flashed in Hezekiah's eyes. "If you'd let me compromise your cases, I might stay." Obadiah made a quick motion as of consent. Hezekiah viewed his shaking employer with great severity. "You must prove your conversion by your works," he rapped. "You've got to show me." "What should I do, Hezekiah?" the manufacturer, looking helpless and old, begged. "Give me the benefit of your advice." "Do?" snapped Hezekiah petulantly. "Decide how you think a thing ought to be done and do the opposite. You're always wrong." "Please be specific, Hezekiah."