...
Do you begin to realize the sort of fight, upside down in a dustbin,
that that Committee is for me?"
"You have to go through with it," Dr. Martineau repeated.
"I have. If I can. But I warn you I have been near breaking point. And
if I tumble off the high horse, if I can't keep going regularly there
to ride the moral high horse, that Committee will slump into utter
scoundrelism. It will turn out a long, inconsistent, botched, unreadable
report that will back up all sorts of humbugging bargains and sham
settlements. It will contain some half-baked scheme to pacify the miners
at the expense of the general welfare. It won't even succeed in doing
that. But in the general confusion old Cassidy will get away with
a series of hauls that may run into millions. Which will last his
time--damn him! And that is where we are.... Oh! I know! I know!.... I
must do this job. I don't need any telling that my life will be nothing
and mean nothing unless I bring this thing through....
"But the thanklessness of playing this lone hand!"
The doctor watched his friend's resentful black silhouette against the
lights on the steely river, and said nothing for awhile.
"Why did I ever undertake to play it?" Sir Richmond appealed. "Why has
it been put upon me? Seeing what a poor thing I am, why am I not a poor
thing altogether?"
Section 8
"I think I understand that loneliness of yours, said the doctor after an
interval.
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