"
"I will take any member of this vestry to talk with that man!"
declared the boy. "Anybody can find out about these things if he wants
to. Why, Mr. Wygant told me himself that he had paid money to Slattery
to get franchises!"
And then Mr. Wygant came into the controversy. "WHAT!" he shouted.
"Why, of course you did!" cried Samuel in amazement. "Didn't you tell
me this very afternoon?"
"I told you nothing of the sort!" declared the man.
"You told me everybody did it--that there was no way to help doing it.
You called it the competition of capital!" "I submit that this is an
outrage!" exclaimed Mr. Hickman. "Leave this room, sir!"
"The poor people in this town are suffering and dying!" cried Samuel.
"And they are being robbed and oppressed. And are these things to go
on forever?"
"Samuel, this is no place to discuss the question!" broke in Dr.
Vince.
"But why not, sir? The guilty men are high
in the councils of this church. They hold the church up to disgrace
before all the world. And this is the church of Christ, sir!"
"But yours is not the way to go about it, boy!" exclaimed Mr.
Hamerton--who was alarmed because Samuel kept looking at him.
"Why not?" cried Samuel. "Did not Christ drive out the moneychangers
from the temple with whips?"
This was an uncomfortable saying. There was a pause after it, as if
everyone were willing to let his neighbor speak first.
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