He had begun life as an
office-boy; and above him were all the heights of business and
finance; and the ladder by which to scale them was money. There were
rivals with whom he fought; and the overcoming of these rivals had
occupied all his time and his thought. If he had bought
legislatures, it was because his rivals were trying to buy them. And
perhaps then he did not even know that he was a wrecker; perhaps he
would not have believed it if anyone had told him! He had travelled
all the long journey of his life, trampling out opposition and
crushing everything before him, nourishing in his heart the hope
that some day, when he had attained to mastery, when there were no
more rivals to oppose and thwart him--then he would be free to do
good. Then he would no longer have to be a wrecker!
And perhaps that was the meaning of his pitiful little effort--an
orphan asylum! It seemed to Montague that the gods must shake with
Olympian laughter when they contemplated the spectacle of Jim Hegan
and his orphan asylum: Jim Hegan, who could have filled a score of
orphan asylums with the children of the men whom he had driven to
ruin and suicide!
These thoughts were seething in Montague's mind, and they would not
let him rest.
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