The Apple of Discord. Earle Ashley Walcott
don't look to be one of us."
"If it's a secret society, I can't say that I've been initiated," I said. "But I hope you'll count me as one of you for an occasional evening. What do you happen to be, if I may ask?"
"We," said Parks, leaning forward and gazing fiercely into my eyes, "we represent the people. We are from the masses."
"I'm afraid, then," I returned with a laugh, "you'll have to count me as one of you. I can't think of any way in which my name gets above the level of the lower ten million."
"Sir," cried Parks, shaking his finger in my face and speaking rapidly and excitedly, "your speech betrays you. You speak of the lower ten million. They are not the lower–no, by Heaven! Your heart is not with the people. There is nothing in you that beats responsive to their cry of distress. You may be as poor as the rest of us, but your feelings, your prejudices are with the despoilers of labor, the oppressors of the lowly. You are–"
What further offense of aristocracy he would have charged upon my head I know not, for Clark reached over and seized his arm.
"Hold on!" he cried. "Mr. Hampden is our guest and a good fellow, so don't be too hard on him. He ain't educated yet. That's all the matter with him. Give him time."
Parks' voice had been rising and his utterance had been growing more rapid and excited, but he lowered his tones once more.
"No offense, Hampden, but my blood boils at the wrongs inflicted on the downtrodden slaves of the wage system, and I speak my mind."
"Oh, go ahead," I said. "It doesn't worry me. Come to think of it, Mr. Parks, you don't seem to be one of the slaves of the wage system yourself. You are, I take it from your words and ways, a man of education and something more."
"Sir," said Parks, striking the table angrily, "it is my misfortune."
"Misfortune?" I laughed inquiringly, and the others laughed in sympathy.
"Misfortune–yes, sir. I repeat it. I have had schooling and to spare. And if it wasn't for that, I could raise this city in arms in a month."
My left-hand neighbor was an old man, a little bent with years, who had been looking about the table with dreamy eye. But at Parks' boastful words his face lighted and he gave a cackling laugh.
"Heh, heh! He's right," he said, addressing the rest of us. "There's a crowd of thieves and robbers on top and they need a taking-down. Parks is just the one to do it."
"You're wrong, Merwin," said Parks, calming down and looking at the old man reflectively. "I'm not the one to do it."
"And why not?" I asked.
"It's the cursed education you speak of," said Parks fiercely. "I am with the masses, but not of them. They mistrust me. Try as I will I can't get their confidence. I can't rouse them. They shout for me, they applaud me, but I can't stir them as they must be stirred before the Revolution can begin."
"What sort of man do you want?" I asked.
"He must be a man of the people," said Parks.
"By which you mean a day-laborer, I judge."
Parks ignored the interruption and went on:
"He must have eloquence, courage, and he must understand men; he must be a statesman by nature–a man of brains. But he must be one of the class he addresses."
"But how are you going to get a man of brains out of that class?" I inquired.
Parks struck the table a sounding blow with his fist, shook his head until his shock of hair stood out in protest, and glared at me fiercely.
"Do you mean to deny," he began hotly, "that brains are born to what you call the lowest classes? Do you deny the divine spark of intelligence to the sons of toil? Do you say that genius is sent to the houses of the rich and not to those of the poor? Do you dare to say that the son of a banker may have brains and that the son of a hodman may not?"
"By no means, my dear fellow. I only say if he has brains he won't be a hodman."
"I've known some pretty smart hodmen in my time," said Clark, when he saw that Parks had no answer ready. "I knew a fellow who made four hundred dollars on a contract. But," he added regretfully, "he lost it in stocks."
"I'm afraid that instance doesn't prove anything, Clark," said Merwin with a thin laugh. "He should have had brains enough to keep out of stocks."
"There's not many as has that," said a heavy-jowled Englishman who sat across the table. "I wish I had 'em myself."
"I'm afraid you're right, Mr. Hampden," said Clark. "We can't get a leader from the hodman class."
Parks leaned forward and spoke quietly and impressively.
"By God, we must!" he said. "I'll be the brains. I'll find the hodman for the mouth, and I'll teach him to talk in a way to set the world on fire."
"And then what?" I asked.
Parks gave his head a shake, and closed his lips tightly as though he feared that some secret would escape them. But the excitable little German with spectacles and a bushy black beard gave me an answer.
"Leeberty, equality, fraternity!" he exclaimed.
"And justice," added the heavy-jowled Englishman.
"These are words, and very good ones," I returned. "But what do you mean by them? You have these things now, or you don't have them–just as you happen to look at it. It usually depends on whether you are successful or not. What does all this mean in action?"
"For one thing," said the square-jawed man seriously, "it means an end of the sort of robbery by law that our friend Merwin here has suffered. Now, twenty years ago he was a prosperous contractor. He took a lot of contracts from old Peter Bolton for filling in some of these water-front blocks down here. He spent two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, d'ye know, and has been lawing for it ever since."
I turned and looked at the face of the old man with more interest. The case of Merwin against Bolton was celebrated in the law books. It was now before the Supreme Court for the sixth time. In the trial court the juries had invariably found for Merwin with costs and interest, and the appellate court had as invariably sent the case back for retrial on errors committed by the lower court, until it had become an impersonal issue, a jest of the law, a legal ghost, almost as far removed from affairs of to-day as "Shelley's case" of unblessed memory.
Merwin looked up quickly, the dreamy gaze no longer clouding his eye.
"I have been kept out of my property for more than twenty years, sir," he said. "It has been a great wrong. If you are interested I should like to tell you about it."
"I am pretty well informed about it already," I replied. "You have been much abused." The legal jest had become a living tragedy, and I felt a glow of shame for the futility of the law that had been unable to do justice to this man.
"I have been made a poor man," said Merwin. "My money was stolen from me by Peter Bolton, and I tell you, sir, he is the greatest scoundrel in the city." And in a sudden flash of temper he struck his fist upon the table.
"He ought to be hanged," said the heavy-jowled man.
"No, no," cried Parks. "It isn't Bolton you should blame. It is the system that makes such things possible. Bolton himself is but the creature of circumstances. As I have reason to know, his heart is stirred by thoughts of better things for humanity. Hang Bolton and another Bolton would take his place to-morrow. Abolish the system, and no man could oppress his neighbor."
"But how are you going to abolish it?" I asked. "It won't go for fine words."
"Rouse the people," cried Parks with passion. "The men who are suffering from these evils are the strength of the nation. Those who profit by the evils are a small minority. Once the people rise in their might the oppressors must fly or be overwhelmed."
"Here's to guns, and the men who know how to use them!" said the heavy-jowled man, draining his glass.
"Oui, oui! Vive la barricade!" croaked a harsh voice behind me, and I turned to see the pasty face of H. Blasius over my shoulder.
"Shut