"
Lewiston turned away, dumb, bewildered. Till morning he walked the
streets, going on without purpose, without direction. But now at last
his luck had turned. Overnight the wheel of his fortunes had creaked and
swung upon its axis, and before noon he had found a job in the
street-cleaning brigade. In the course of time he rose to be first
shift-boss, then deputy inspector, then inspector, promoted to the
dignity of driving in a red wagon with rubber tires and drawing a salary
instead of mere wages. The wife was sent for and a new start made.
But Lewiston never forgot. Dimly he began to see the significance of
things. Caught once in the cogs and wheels of a great and terrible
engine, he had seen--none better--its workings. Of all the men who had
vainly stood in the "bread line" on that rainy night in early summer,
he, perhaps, had been the only one who had struggled up to the surface
again. How many others had gone down in the great ebb? Grim question; he
dared not think how many.
He had seen the two ends of a great wheat operation--a battle between
Bear and Bull. The stories (subsequently published in the city's press)
of Truslow's countermove in selling Hornung his own wheat, supplied the
unseen section. The farmer--he who raised the wheat--was ruined upon one
hand; the working-man--he who consumed it--was ruined upon the other.
But between the two, the great operators, who never saw the wheat they
traded in, bought and sold the world's food, gambled in the nourishment
of entire nations, practised their tricks, their chicanery and oblique
shifty "deals," were reconciled in their differences, and went on
through their appointed way, jovial, contented, enthroned, and
unassailable.
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