Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/347

 I knew a reporter, an Irish lad, whom one of the attorneys of privilege sought to "befriend."

"You work pretty hard, don't you?" asked the attorney.

"Yes," said the Irish lad.

"And your salary is small?"

"Yes."

"And a mortgage on your mother's home?" The agents of privilege always know a man's necessities!

"Yes."

"Well, now, I can tell you how things can be eased up a bit for you. For instance"

After the proposal had been artfully made, the Irish lad thought a moment, and then he raised those blue eyes to the old lawyer.

"Your wife is prominent socially, isn't she?"

"Why, yes."

"President of—this and that, eh?"

"Yes."

"And your daughters just home from a finishing school in Europe, aren't they?"

"Yes—but what?"

"I was wondering," said the Irish lad, rising, "how you dared go home at night and look 'em in the face."

Not all men though have the character, the moral resistance of that Irish lad, and the scores of the weak and erring ones are the tragic figures in the long drama of the traction company in the city, in any city—the drama that can not be written.