Tom was saying something about reasonableness and justice, and
Bert ceased from singing to catch him up.
"Justice, eh? Another pipe-dream. I'll show you where the working
class gets justice. You remember Forbes--J. Alliston
Forbes--wrecked the Alta California Trust Company an' salted down
two cold millions. I saw him yesterday, in a big hell-bent
automobile. What'd he get? Eight years' sentence. How long did he
serve? Less'n two years. Pardoned out on account of ill health.
Ill hell! We'll be dead an' rotten before he kicks the bucket.
Here. Look out this window. You see the back of that house with
the broken porch rail. Mrs. Danaker lives there. She takes in
washin'. Her old man was killed on the railroad. Nitsky on
damages--contributory negligence, or
fellow-servant-something-or-other flimflam. That's what the
courts handed her. Her boy, Archie, was sixteen. He was on the
road, a regular road-kid. He blew into Fresno an' rolled a drunk.
Do you want to know how much he got? Two dollars and eighty
cents. Get that?--Two-eighty. And what did the alfalfa judge
hand'm? Fifty years. He's served eight of it already in San
Quentin. And he'll go on serving it till he croaks. Mrs. Danaker
says he's bad with consumption--caught it inside, but she ain't
got the pull to get'm pardoned. Archie the Kid steals two dollars
an' eighty cents from a drunk and gets fifty years. J. Alliston
Forbes sticks up the Alta Trust for two millions en' gets less'n
two years. Who's country is this anyway? Yourn an' Archie the
Kid's? Guess again. It's J. Alliston Forbes'--Oh:
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