It changed, quite as an eruption might, the whole face of the commercial landscape.

Man thought thereafter somewhat more accurately of national and civic things.

What was anarchism?
What socialism?
What rights had the rank and file, anyhow, in economic and governmental development?
Such were interesting questions, and following the bomb--which acted as a great stone cast in the water--these ripple-rings of thought were still widening and emanating until they took in such supposedly remote and impregnable quarters as editorial offices, banks and financial institutions generally, and the haunts of political dignitaries and their jobs.
In the face of this, however, Cowperwood was not disturbed.

He did not believe in either the strength of the masses or their ultimate rights, though he sympathized with the condition of individuals, and did believe that men like himself were sent into the world to better perfect its mechanism and habitable order.

Often now, in these preliminary days, he looked at the large companies of men with their horses gathered in and about the several carbarns of the company, and wondered at their state.