or free
speech when the Government's got a boil on the back of its neck and is
feeling irritable. Besides, no one ever did believe in free speech, and
no government on earth ever allowed it. Free speakers have always had to
use judgment. Up to now we've let 'em be free-speakinger than any other
country has, but now they better watch out until the boat quits rocking.
They attack the machinery and try to take it apart, and then cry when
they're smacked. Maybe they might get this boy the other side of a cell
door. Wouldn't hurt him any."

"Of course," protested Harvey D., "we can hardly expect you to have a
father's feeling for him."

"Well, I have!" retorted Dave. "I got just as much father's feeling for
him as you have. But you people are small-towners, and I been about in
the world. I know the times and I know that boy. I'm telling you what's
best for him. No more cream! If it had been that other boy of mine you
took, and he was believing what this one thinks he believes, I'd be
telling you something different."

"Always said he had the gumption," declared Sharon Whipple.

"He's got the third eye," said Dave Cowan.

"We want to thank you for this talk," interposed Gideon Whipple. "Much
of what you have said is very, very interesting. I think my son will now
know what course to pursue."

"Don't mention it!" said Dave, graciously. "Always glad to oblige."

The consultation seemed about to end, but even at the door of the
little room Dave paused to acquaint them with other interesting facts
about life. He informed them that we are all brothers of the earth,
being composed of carbon and a few other elements, and grow from it as
do the trees; that we are but super-vegetables. He further instructed
them as to the constitution of a balanced diet--protein for building,
starches or sugar for energy, and fats for heating and also for their
vitamine content.

The Whipples, it is to be feared, were now inattentive. They appeared to
listen, but they were merely surveying with acute interest the now
revealed lower half of Dave Cowan. The trousers were frayed, the shoes
were but wraiths of shoes. The speaker, quite unconscious of this
scrutiny, concluded by returning briefly to the problems of human
association.

"We'll have socialism when every man is like every other man. So far
Nature hasn't made even two alike. Anyway, most of us got the third eye
of wisdom too wide open to take any stock in it. We may like it when we