give them also. But the vicar says this is all nonsense too. He
says that the world would never be able to go on if we did as Jesus
taught. The vicar teaches that the way to deal with those that injure
us is to have them put into prison, or--if they belong to some other
country--to take guns and knives and murder them, and burn their
houses. So you see the vicar doesn't really believe or do any of the
things that Jesus said: he only pretends.'

'But why does he pretend, and go about talking like that, Mum? What
does he do it for?'

'Because he wishes to live without working himself, dear.'

'And don't the people know he's only pretending?'

'Some of them do. Most of the idlers know that what the vicar says is
not true, but they pretend to believe it, and give him money for saying
it, because they want him to go on telling it to the workers so that
they will go on working and keep quiet and be afraid to think for
themselves.'

'And what about the workers? Do they believe it?

'Most of them do, because when they were little children like you,
their mothers taught them to believe, without thinking, whatever the
vicar said, and that God made them for the use of the idlers. When
they went to school, they were taught the same thing: and now that
they're grown up they really believe it, and they go to work and give
nearly everything they make to the idlers, and have next to nothing
left for themselves and their children. That's the reason why the
workers' children have very bad clothes to wear and sometimes no food
to eat; and that's how it is that the idlers and their children have
more clothes than they need and more food than they can eat. Some of
them have so much food that they are not able to eat it. They just
waste it or throw it away.'

'When I'm grown up into a man,' said Frankie, with a flushed face, 'I'm
going to be one of the workers, and when we've made a lot of things, I
shall stand up and tell the others what to do. If any of the idlers
come to take our things away, they'll get something they won't like.'

In a state of suppressed excitement and scarcely conscious of what he
was doing, the boy began gathering up the toys and throwing the
violently one by one into the box.

'I'll teach 'em to come taking our things away,' he exclaimed,
relapsing momentarily into his street style of speaking.

'First of all we'll all stand quietly on one side. Then when the
idlers come in and start touchin