"Now look here, Miss Mason, you've got me there slightly, I
grant. But you've seen me in business a long time now, and you
know I don't make a practice of raiding the poor people. I go
after the big fellows. They're my meat. They rob the poor, and
I rob them. That coal deal was an accident. I wasn't after the
poor people in that, but after the big fellows, and I got them,
too. The poor people happened to get in the way and got hurt,
that was all.

"Don't you see," he went on, "the whole game is a gamble.
Everybody gambles in one way or another. The farmer gambles
against the weather and the market on his crops. So does the
United States Steel Corporation. The business of lots of men is
straight robbery of the poor people. But I've never made that my
business. You know that. I've always gone after the robbers."

"I missed my point," she admitted. "Wait a minute."

And for a space they rode in silence.

"I see it more clearly than I can state it, but it's something
like this. There is legitimate work, and there's work that--well,
that isn't legitimate. The farmer works the soil and produces
grain. He's making something that is good for humanity. He
actually, in a way, creates something, the grain that will fill
the mouths of the hungry."

"And then the railroads and market-riggers and the rest proceed
to rob him of that same grain,"--Daylight broke in Dede smiled