“I know about it now,” said Dan, finally.  “I pumped it out of the eminent legal lights that turned over to me poor old dad’s collections of bonds and boodle.  It amounts to $2,000,000, Ken.  And I am told that he squeezed it out of the chaps that pay their pennies for loaves of bread at little bakeries around the corner.  You’ve studied economics, Dan, and you know all about monopolies, and the masses, and octopuses, and the rights of laboring people.  I never thought about those things before.  Football and trying to be white to my fellow-man were about the extent of my college curriculum.

“But since I came back and found out how dad made his money I’ve been thinking.  I’d like awfully well to pay back those chaps who had to give up too much money for bread.  I know it would buck the line of my income for a good many yards; but I’d like to make it square with ’em.  Is there any way it can be done, old Ways and Means?”

Kenwitz’s big black eyes glowed fierily.  His thin, intellectual face took on almost a sardonic cast.  He caught Dan’s arm with the grip of a friend and a judge.

“You can’t do it!” he said, emphatically.  “One of the chief punishments of you men of ill-gotten wealth is that when you do repent you find that you have lost the power to make reparation or restitution.  I admire your good intentions, Dan, but you can’t do anything.  Those people were robbed of their precious pennies.  It’s too late to remedy the evil.  You can’t pay them back”

“Of course,” said Dan, lighting his pipe, “we couldn’t hunt up every one of the duffers and hand ’em back the right change.  There’s an awful lot of ’em buying bread all the time.  Funny taste they have—­I never cared for bread especially, except for a toasted cracker with the Roquefort.  But we might find a few of ’em and chuck some of dad’s cash back where it came from.  I’d feel better if I could.  It seems tough for people to be held up for a soggy thing like bread.  One wouldn’t mind standing a rise in broiled lobsters or deviled crabs.  Get to work and think, Ken.  I want to pay back all of that money I can.”

“There are plenty of charities,” said Kenwitz, mechanically.

“Easy enough,” said Dan, in a cloud of smoke.  “I suppose I could give the city a park, or endow an asparagus bed in a hospital.  But I don’t want Paul to get away with the proceeds of the gold brick we sold Peter.  It’s the bread shorts I want to cover, Ken.”

The thin fingers of Kenwitz moved rapidly.

“Do you know how much money it would take to pay back the losses of consumers during that corner in flour?” he asked.

“I do not.” said Dan, stoutly.  “My lawyer tells me that I have two millions.”

“If you had a hundred millions,” said Kenwitz, vehemently, “you couldn’t repair a thousandth part of the damage that has been done.  You cannot conceive of the accumulated evils produced by misapplied wealth.  Each penny that was wrung from the lean purses of the poor reacted a thousandfold to their harm.  You do not understand.  You do not see how hopeless is your desire to make restitution.  Not in a single instance can it be done.”