"Ah! Rousing public opinion's no use at all?... Why, don't you _know_ that public opinion is the grandfather of your little statute-book laws? Don't you--" "Yair. Know. See you say that in your letter." "Well, it's a _great truth_!... How tactful will you feel some day, when one of those floors at the Heth Works collapses and kills a hundred people?" Labor Commissioner O'Neill seemed unterrified by the grisly picture. He was strolling about the very large, bare, and strange-looking medical office, flicking cigar-ash where he would: a good-natured-looking Commissioner of thirty, wearing a glossy brown suit and strong yellow gloves. And his present pacific air was undoubtedly to his credit; certainly he had been annoyed when his eye first fell on the "Severe Arraignment," over his morning rasher.... "And that isn't the worst of it," shot the doctor again, flinging out an arm. "It's only a detail, I say, this factory end of it; only a symptom, don't you see? What we're dealing with is the most dangerous element in the life of this city! Tact!... When fire couldn't sweep through that new house of yours faster than the corrupting ideals of these people'll lick through this community!" "Whe-ew!" said Sam O'Neill, this ground being not unfamiliar.... "Got to take 'em along slowly, Doctor, all the same. Rome wasn't built in a day." "But mark my words, the vandals kicked it down in about fifteen minutes." O'Neill felt vaguely worsted by this riposte. He was the older man, the practical man, with a proven ability to make money out of real estate; but old V.V., though talking like an anarchist of late, was admitted to have a verbal dexterity at debate. Argument was forced upon Sam, as it were. He demanded authority for calling these people corrupting; desired to know if V.V. knew any of 'em personally. And presently he was reading aloud from the letter in the "Post," reading retributively; one swingeing phrase after another. "And here--here! Listen to this, will you?--'Why should we stand by and permit these shameless egoists of industry to bleed the strength from the community's sinew and grow rich by homicide at the cost of the race?'..." Severe, indeed, the Arraignment seemed when read aloud to you in that tone. Gusto ebbed a little, mayhap. But it was clear that the medical author did not propose to retract; quite the contrary, in short. "Permit! Ought to have asked why we applaud them, court them, _envy_ them--" "'Shameless homicides'!--and he calls it mild! Now, here, honor bright--" "It's what they are--and more! You ask me if I know these people personally? I reply that in the truest sense I do know 'em, very well, for I've made a study of the type, d'you see?..." Then the office door from the hall opened about a foot, a fat head in a gaunt bonnet protruded through the crevice, having rather a decapitated look, and a deep inflectionless voice said: