“Devil take them, if it comes to that!” retorted Flint, with some heat.  “Who ever gives them any serious attention, as it is?  Who bothers about their health?  They eat and drink and breathe the leavings, anyhow—­eat the cheapest and most adulterated food, drink the vilest slop and breathe the most vitiated slum air.  Nobody cares, except perhaps those crazy Socialists that once in a while get up on the street-corner and howl about the rights of man and all that rubbish!  Working-class?  What do I care about the cattle?  Let them die, if they want to!  D’you suppose, for one minute, I’m going to limit or delay this big innovation, because there’s a working-class that may suffer?”

“They’ll do more than suffer, Flint, if you seriously depreciate the atmosphere.  They’ll die!”

“Well, let them, and be damned to them!” retorted Flint, already showing symptoms of drug-stimulation.  Waldron, smoking meanwhile, eyed him with a dangerous smile lurking in his cold eyes.  “Let them, I say!  They die off, now, twice or thrice as fast as the better classes, but what difference does it make?  Great breeders, those people are.  The more they die, the faster they multiply.  Let them go their way and do as they like, so long as they don’t interfere with us!  The only really important factor to reckon on is this, that with an impoverished air to breathe, their rebellious spirit will die out—­the dogs!—­and we’ll have no more talk of social revolution.  We’ll draw their teeth, all right enough; or rather, twist the bowstring round their damned necks so tight that all their energy, outside of work, will be consumed in just keeping alive.  Revolution, then?  Forget it, Waldron!  We’ll kill that viper once and for all!”

“Good idea, Flint,” the other replied, with approbation.  “Only a master-mind like yours could have conceived it.  I’m with you, all right enough.  Only, tell me—­do you really believe we can put this whole program through, without a hitch?  Without a leak, anywhere?  Without barricades in the streets, wild-eyed agitators howling, machine-guns chattering, and Hell to pay?”

Flint smiled grimly.

“Wait and see!” he growled.

“Maybe you’re right,” his partner answered.  “But slow and easy is the only way.”

“Slow and easy,” Flint assented.  “Of course we can’t go too fast.  In 1850, for example, do you suppose the public would have tolerated the sudden imposition of monopolies?  Hardly!  But now they lie down under them, and even vote and fight to keep them!  So, too, with this Air Trust.  Time will show you I’m right.”

Waldron glanced at his watch.

“Long past lunch-time, Flint,” said he.  “Enough of this, for now.  And this afternoon, I’ve got that D. K. & E. directors’ meeting on hand.  When shall we go on with our plans, and get down to specific details?”

“This evening, say?”

“Very well.  At my house?”