nt. It was now cunningly conserved from ear
to ear, above a forehead that had heightened. The face was thinner, and
etched with new lines about the orator's mouth, but the eyes shone with
the same light as of old and the same willingness to shed its beams
through shadowed places such as first national banks. He no longer
accepted the cigar, to preserve in the upper left-hand waist coat pocket
with the fountain pen, the pencil, and the toothbrush. He craved rather
permission to fill and light the calabash pipe. This was a mere bit of
form, for he was soon talking so continuously that the pipe was no
longer a going concern.

Delay was occasioned at the beginning of the interview. It proved to be
difficult to convey to Dave exactly why he had been summoned. It
appeared that he did not expect a consultation--rather a lecture by
Dave Cowan upon life in its larger aspects. The Whipples, strangely,
were all not a little embarrassed in his presence, and the mere mention
of his son caused him to be informative for ten minutes before any of
them dared to confine the flow of his discourse within narrower banks.
He dealt volubly with the doctrines espoused by Merle, whereas they
wished to be told how to deal with Merle. As he talked he consulted from
time to time a sheaf of clippings brought from a pocket.

"A joke," began Dave, "all this socialistic talk. Get this from their
platform: They demand that the country and its wealth be redeemed from
the control of private interests and turned over to the people to be
administered for the equal benefit of all. See what they mean? Going to
have a law that a short man can reach as high as a tall man. Good joke,
yes? Here again: 'The Socialist Party desires the workers of America to
take the economic and political power from the capitalistic class.'
Going to pull themselves off the ground by their boot straps, yes? Have
a law to make the weak strong and the strong weak. Reads good, don't it?
And here's the prize joke--one big union: Socialist Party does not
interfere in the internal affairs of labour unions, but supports them in
all their struggles. In order, however, that such struggles might attain
the maximum of efficiency the socialists favour the closest organic
cooperation of all unions as one organized working body.

"Get that? Lovely, ain't it? And when we're all in one big union, who
are we going to strike against? Against ourselves, of course--like we do
now. Bricklayers striki