And Oliver came down to particulars - he named these powerful men, one after one, and showed what they could do. If his brother would only be a man of the world, and see the thing! Look at all the successful lawyers! Oliver named them, one after one - shrewd devisers of corporation trickery, with incomes of hundreds of thousands a year. He could not name the men who had refused to play the game - for no one had ever heard of them. But it was so evident what would happen in this case! His friends would cast him off; his own client would get his price - whatever it was - and then leave him in the lurch, and laugh at him! "If you can't make up your mind to play the game," cried Oliver, frantically, "at least you can give it up! There are plenty of other ways of getting a living - if you'll let me, I'll take care of you myself, rather than have you disgrace me. Tell me - will you do that? Will you quit altogether?"

And Montague suddenly leaped to his feet, and brought his fist down upon the desk with a bang. "No!" he cried; "by God, no!"

"Let me make you understand me once for all," he rushed on. "You've shown me New York as you see it. I don't believe it's the truth - I don't believe it for one single moment! But let me tell you this, I shall stay here and find out - and if it is true, it won't stop me! I shall stay here and defy those people! I shall stay and fight them till the day I die! They may ruin me, - I'll go and live in a garret if I have to, - but as sure as there's a God that made me, I'll never stop till I've opened the eyes of the people to what they're doing!"

Montague towered over his brother, white-hot and terrible. Oliver shrank from him - he never had seen such a burst of wrath from him before. "Do you understand me now?" Montague cried; and he answered, in a despairing voice, "Yes, yes."

"I see it's all up," he added weakly. "You and I can't pull together."

"No," exclaimed the other, passionately, "we can't. And we might as well give up trying. You have chosen to be a time-server and a lick-spittle, and I don't choose it! Do you think I've learned nothing in the time I've been here? Why, man, you used to be daring and clever - and now you never draw a breath without wondering if these rich snobs will like the way you do it! And you want Alice to sell herself to them - you want me to sell my career to them!"