"In ancient Greece," she began pedantically, "a man was judged a
good citizen who built houses, planted trees--" She did not
complete the quotation, but drew the conclusion hurriedly. "How
many houses have you built? How many trees have you planted?"

He shook his head noncommittally, for he had not grasped the
drift of the argument.

"Well," she went on, "two winters ago you cornered coal--"

"Just locally," he grinned reminiscently, "just locally. And I
took advantage of the car shortage and the strike in British
Columbia."

"But you didn't dig any of that coal yourself. Yet you forced it
up four dollars a ton and made a lot of money. That was your
business. You made the poor people pay more for their coal. You
played fair, as you said, but you put your hands down into all
their pockets and took their money away from them. I know. I
burn a grate fire in my sitting-room at Berkeley. And instead of
eleven dollars a ton for Rock Wells, I paid fifteen dollars that
winter. You robbed me of four dollars. I could stand it. But
there were thousands of the very poor who could not stand it.
You might call it legal gambling, but to me it was downright
robbery."

Daylight was not abashed. This was no revelation to him. He
remembered the old woman who made wine in the Sonoma hills and
the millions like her who were made to be robbed.