In the sitting room
was a desk, as clean and orderly as Doyle's was untidy. Having put
on his dressing gown he went to it, and with a sheet of paper before
him sat for some time thinking.
He found his work irksome at times. True, it had its interest. He
was the liaison between organized labor, which was conservative in
the main, and the radical element, both in and out of the
organization. He played a double game, and his work was always the
same, to fan the discontent latently smoldering in every man's soul
into a flame. And to do this he had not Doyle's fanaticism.
Personally, Louis Akers found the world a pretty good place. He
hated the rich because they had more than he had, but he scorned
the poor because they had less. And he liked the feeling of power
he had when, on the platform, men swayed to his words like wheat to
a wind.
Personal ambition was his fetish, as power was Anthony Cardew's.
Sometimes he walked past the exclusive city clubs, and he dreamed of
a time when he, too, would have the entree to them. But time was
passing. He was thirty-three years old when Jim Doyle crossed his
path, and the clubs were as far away as ever.
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