handed and tyrannical proceeding. One of the ironmasters asked him if he knew anything about the facts of the case, and Stewart replied that no facts could justify the measure which Floyd had taken. It was an offense to civilization; it was revolting to the spirit of liberty. The manufacturers resented Stewart's instructive utterances, and there was an acrimonious debate. They refused to accept Stewart's assertion that Avalon was one of the most benighted places in the country and that its capitalists and not its laboring classes needed education. In argument Stewart's manner was never persuasive, but if his eloquence usually failed to convince others, it always gave intense satisfaction to his own convictions. His designation now of the Avalon capitalists as "satraps" struck him as particularly happy, and he harped upon it to the increasing irritation of the two gentlemen whom he thus classified. They assured him after a time with emphasis that he was talking nonsense and intimated that he was the sort of person who might naturally be expected to talk nonsense.
Stewart went home with his mind stimulated and his passions and emotions roused. Since the scurrilous criticism of his pictures, he had never had much sympathy with the point of view maintained by the editor of the Telegram, but he congratulated himself on being broad-minded enough not to let either his personal grievance or his personal friendship influence his judgment. The fact that the Telegram had once been unjustly abusive of him could not invalidate to his impartial mind the justice with which it censured Floyd. And such championship as Floyd had received that evening from his fellow manufacturers only made his offense the more glaring. Stewart confessed that he was at last beginning to perceive and appreciate the underlying traits in his friend's character. The qualities and motives which Floyd was displaying in these relations with his men were, as Stewart now saw with entire clearness, precisely those which had governed
