So Thomas Spears was offered the place and gladly accepted it. He had
not been there long before he found himself doing all the stenographic
work and typing.

Spears was a man of few words. He did his work promptly and well. Thor
had him closely shadowed for a long while, and the report came that he
had no bad habits and but few companions and those of the best. But Thor
could get no confidential report upon the workings of his mind. He did
not know that his conscience sickened at what he learned through the
correspondence and from his fellow clerks. He did not know that his
every heart beat was for the unfortunates that came within the reach of
Thor's avarice, and were left the merest derelicts upon the financial
seas.

All the clerks were gone, the lights were out and Spears sat by the
window looking out over the great modern Babylon, still fighting with
his conscience. His sense of loyalty to the man who gave him his
livelihood rebelled at the thought of treachery. It was not unlike
accepting food and shelter and murdering your benefactor, for Spears
well knew that in the present state of the public mind if once the truth
were known, it would mean death to such as Thor. For with a fatuous
ignorance of public feeling the interests had gone blindly on, conceding
nothing, stifling competition and absorbing the wealth and energies of
the people.

Spears knew that the whole social and industrial fabric of the nation
was at high tension, and that it needed but a spark to explode. He held
within his hand that spark. Should he plunge the country, his country,
into a bloody internecine war, or should he let the Selwyns and the
Thors trample the hopes, the fortunes and the lives of the people under