In the first place, the president was in an angry mood when he went to that conference. The sailing of the Comet had had to be postponed yet another day, and besides that a stone had been flung at his head only five minutes before. I mention the stone particularly because, as I have said, an unfortunate incident occurred at the conference.  
They sat at a long table one October afternoon,—eight men, seven of them pale and trembling, fingering their hats and gazing about them nervously, with long agony written on their faces, a certain hunted look that sportsmen know, but do not heed.
 
And Mr. Robert van Rensselaer—it has been some time since we have looked at him. He was a gentleman of forty now, grown somewhat portly and a little florid, but not too much so. He had always been a man of distinction—you would have taken[33] him for a diplomat, or a general, at the very least.
 
He was a little pale just then about the lips, and he began the conference in a tone whose calmness any one could have told was forced. He began at the beginning—he explained the losses of the mills, and how they were barely established now. He mentioned the new machinery, and showed the cost of it. He laid before them a great mass of papers, and made plain how the new machinery had increased the output and been equivalent to a raise. He went on to the price of billets, he showed the state of the market with elaborately marshalled figures, and proved what the price must soon be. To all of which, a speech of nearly two hours, the men listened fixedly.
 
Afterward one of the delegates, a little wiry, black-bearded Hungarian, took up the question. He wandered from the point at once, discussing the price of food, and the condition of the workingmen, much to the president's annoyance. The latter tried to[34] bring him back to the point at issue—he returned to the papers again, and they argued back and forth for a long time. Several times Mr. van Rensselaer choked down an angry word.
 
"You talk to me about the condition of the workingmen," he exclaimed, tapping on the table with his pencil. "But how can I help the condition of the workingmen? You say his wages are not living wages—but who can decide a question such as that? What one man can live on, another cannot. What if t............