``One way or another,'' declared the old man. ``That Dorn boy
isn't worth the price he'd want.''

``What price would he want?'' asked Jane.

``How should I know?'' retorted her father angrily.

``You've tried to hire him--haven't you?'' persisted she.

The father concentrated on his crackers and milk. Presently he
said: ``What did that fool Hull boy say about Dorn to you?''

``He doesn't like him,'' replied Jane. ``He seems to be jealous
of him--and opposed to his political views.''

``Dorn's views ain't politics. They're--theft and murder and
highfalutin nonsense,'' said Hastings, not unconscious of his
feeble anti-climax.

``All the same, he--or rather, his mother--ought to have got
damages from the railway,'' said the girl. And there was a
sudden and startling shift in her expression --to a tenacity as
formidable as her father's own, but a quiet and secret tenacity.

Old Hastings wiped his mouth and began fussing uncomfortably with
a cigar.

``I don't blame him for getting bitter and turning against
society,'' continued she. ``I'd have done the same thing--and so
would you.''