Farr shook his head and walked on.

He was a rather striking figure for a New England city as he strolled along.  It did not seem to be affectation for this man to wear a frock-coat without a waistcoat, a flowing black tie setting off his snowy linen.  The attire seemed to belong to his physique and manner.

Women smiled at him in friendly fashion; men gave respectful and affectionate salutation.

Soon he stepped off the street into a room where a group of men were waiting for him, so it appeared, because they all rose when he entered.

He called the little meeting to order promptly, informing them that he would detain them only a short time.

“I rise to make a motion,” said a man at one stage of the proceedings.  “There have been so many volunteers in the work and the folks have been so ready to pay for real water in place of that stuff we get from the taps, that three hundred dollars have accumulated in the treasury.  We all know that there is just one man who had been responsible for this whole plan and has given his time and has run about our state and hasn’t charged anything but expenses for doing it all.  I move we give that sum to Mr. Farr—­wishing it was more.”

The speaker was loudly applauded.

Farr was so quickly on his feet and spoke so promptly that he clipped the man’s last words.

“A moment, my friends, before that motion is seconded.”  He held up his hand and checked their protests against what his air told them.  “Because my little plan has succeeded better than I hoped is not due to me, but to the generous co-operation of good men who have given their time.  We are saving the babies, thank God!  But do you know what else we have done by our hard toil and our devotion?  We are propping up the Consolidated Water Company in this state.  Understand me!  I am not attacking that company because it is a corporation.  If it were now making preparations to pipe down to us clean water from the hills I would gladly go on giving my time to this cause in order to help the case of the Consolidated.  But the men in control are deliberately shutting their eyes to the real situation.  Now that folks aren’t dying, they claim all the credit—­when we know the credit is due to weary men who go on working after their day’s toil is over.  It isn’t right—­it isn’t just!  My friends, I have got hold of a bigger thing than I reckoned on when I started out to wake those poison-peddlers up.  Now that we are cleaning up the typhoid, the Consolidated is simply riding on our backs—­refusing to see the real truth.  If they give Marion pure water it will be only at more exorbitant rates, because the nearest lake is twenty miles away.  I’m not an anarchist—­I want to see capital get its just reward.  But when a syndicate takes a franchise from citizens and makes them pay over and over for what was their own the citizens have a right to rise in self-defense.  When we force the Consolidated to give us what we’re paying for—­pure water—­they evidently propose to make us pay for what they call our cheek in asking.”  He paused for a moment, and his smile succeeded his earnestness.  “I beg your pardon for saying ‘we.’  I must remember that I’m still a stranger in this city.”