Stuart rose next morning with a dull headache. The more he had puzzled over the speech he should make to the mob besieging Bivens\'s bank the more doubtful seemed the outcome. Still to remain silent longer, amid the accusations which were being daily hurled at him, was intolerable. He was possessed with a fierce desire to meet at least one of his foes face to face.

He took his breakfast early and walked down town to his office through the Bowery and Centre Street as he was in the habit of doing occasionally. Everything rubbed him the wrong way this morning. Every sight and sound of the city seemed to bruise and hurt. Never before had the ugliness of the elevated railroad struck him with such crushing hopelessness. He felt that its rusty hideous form, looming against the sky line, was a crime. The crowded trolley cars, the rushing, rattling lines of drays, the ugly, dirty, cheap-looking people hurrying past—it was all horrible!

The sense of loneliness and isolation grew upon him—a sort of dumb hatred of all these unthinking stolid beasts of burden who were bending their backs daily to their stupid tasks, trampling each other to death, too, in their own mad sordid scramble for money.

He paused at the Brooklyn Bridge and stood in silence while the black torrent of unmeaning faces, whose expression this morning was distinctly inhuman, rolled past and spread out into the square and streets.

He was glad for the moment that not one of them knew him, though he was daily giving his life to their service.

He turned and pushed his way through the throngs, crossed the City Hall Square and in a few minutes reached the Broadway corner on which the Bivens bank stood. Its magnificent marble fa?ade, crowned with gilded dome, gleamed white and solemn in the morning sun like some proud temple man had built to the worship of God.

The crowd about its doors, which had not yet been opened, was unusually large and turbulent. With the aid of two officers he pushed and fought his way unrecognized through the mob and at last reached the side entrance of the bank.

Bivens, watching from within, opened the door and he stepped inside.

"Jim, if you try to speak to that gang of madmen you\'re a fool," the financier began, with a scowl. "What they need is not eloquence, they need a club."

"You can\'t blame them for wanting their money, Cal, after all it\'s theirs, not yours, you know."

"You\'re going to talk to them?"

"I\'m going to try."

"It\'s a foolish and dangerous thing to do."

"Nonsense. They are at least human. They have reason."

A low howl of rage stirred the crowd without. A fight for place in the line had broken out.

"Is that reason?" Bivens asked, cynically. "It\'s not even human. It\'s the growl of the beast that always sleeps beneath the skin."

"I haven\'t lost faith in my fellow-men yet," was the dogged answer.

"All right, good luck. I know your intentions are the best. You think it\'s your duty to yourself and the people. I\'m sorry I can\'t stay to hear you. I\'ve an important meeting this morning. I must go at once. I\'ve instructed my detectives inside to stand by you if you need help."

"Thanks, I won\'t need them."

The little swarthy figure paused at the door.

"Don\'t fool yourself into believing anybody in that crowd cares about the work you have done in their service. Scores of them are under deep personal obligations to me. But I\'m leaving this building by my neighbour\'s roof this morning. You don\'t want to forget, Jim, that the rabble for whom even Christ lived and died, shouted in his face at last \'Crucify him! Crucify him!\'"

Stuart smiled at the incongruous farce of Bivens\'s familiarity with the Bible—yet there was no mistaking the fact of his emotions and the sincerity of his religious faith. The little financier had already begun to pose to himself as a martyr and a public benefactor. In spite of howling mobs and crushing markets he was busy now saving the credit of the Nation! He was one of the group of the king\'s council engaged in that important work. The "undesirable" had been eliminated and now a vast pool was being formed to support the market and kindly hold the securities until the people could get their breath and make money enough to buy them back at a profit. In due time he knew that his name would be enrolled with the king\'s as a patriot and public benefactor.

Bivens lingered a moment as if reluctant to give up dissuading Stuart, waved him a friendly adieu at last, stepped into the elevator and left by the roof.

It was yet fifteen minutes to ten, the hour for opening the bank\'s doors, and Stuart decided to address the crowd immediately.

In accordance with Bivens\'s instructions the cashier opened the bronze doors and squeezed through, admitting Stuart and two detectives. At the sight of the cashier a thrill of horror swept the crowd—half-groan, half-sigh, half-cry, inarticulate, inhuman, beastly in its grovelling fear.

"Great God!"

"They\'re going to suspend!"

"It\'s all over!"

The groans melted into broken curses and exclamations and died into silence as the cashier lifted his hand.

"I have the honour, gentlemen, of presenting this morning a distinguished servant of the people who has a message for you, the man whose unselfish devotion to the cause of Justice has earned him the right to a hearing, the Honourable James Stuart, your District Attorney."

The young lawyer stepped from the doorway in front of the cashier, who retired.

A roar of rage swept the crowd. Howls, curses, catcalls, hisses, hoots and yells were hurled into his face. It was a new experience in Stuart\'s life. He flushed red, stood for a moment surveying the mob with growing anger, and lifted his hand for silence.

The answer was a storm of hisses. Apparently he hadn\'t a friend in all the swaying mass of howling maniacs. He drew his heavy brows down over his eyes and the square jaws ground together with sullen determination. He folded his arms deliberately and waited for silence. Evidently these people had swallowed every lie his enemies had printed. It was incredible that rational human beings should be such fools, but it was true.

For a moment the hideous thought forced itself into his soul that a life of unselfish public service was futile. In all this babel of jangling cries and cat-calls not one voice was lifted in decent protest. He felt that his work was a failure and he had been pitching straws against the wind.

As wave after wave of idiotic hissing rose and fell only to swell again into greater fury a feeling of blind rage filled his being. He understood at last the persistence in the human mind of the doctrine of hell. It was a necessity of the moral universe. God simply must consume such trash. Nothing else could be done with it.

With a sudden impulse, he threw his right hand high above his head and his voice boomed over the crowd in a peal of command. The effect was electrical. A painful hush followed. The swaying mass stood rooted in their tracks by the tones of authority his first word had expressed.

"Gentlemen!"

He paused and his next words were spoken in intense silence.

"My answer to the extraordinary greeting you have given me this morning is simple. I am not working for your approval, I work for my own approval, because I must in obedience to the call within me. Long ago in my life I gave up ambition and ceased to ask anything for myself. You cannot destroy my career because I cherish none. If I succeed in the work to which I have been called it is well. If I fail, it is also well. I have done my duty and obeyed the call to the service of my fellow-man!"

Again he paused as his voice choked with deep emotion. The crowd stared as if in a spell.

"The scene you are enacting here this morning is a disgrace to humanity. You have surrendered to the unmeaning fear that drives a herd of swine over a precipice. You have, by an act of your will, joined in a movement to paralyze the motive power of the world—faith! There is but one thing that runs this earth of ours for a single day—faith in one another.

"You are scrambling here for a few dollars in this bank. What can you do with it when you draw it out? T............