d worked in contained practically the whole communist party.
He got rather excited and said the numbers were growing faster than he
had imagined. He had figured that it would take forty years to bring
about the Red commonwealth, but with the new light I had thrown on the
subject he concluded that the times were ripening faster than he had
dared to hope, and that there was no doubt the revolution would be upon
us within three years.

The comrade told me he was not popular in the village for two reasons.
The capitalistic storekeepers called him a dead beat and the church
people had rotten-egged him for a speech he had made denouncing
religion. I saw by his hands that he didn't work much, and from the
hands of his wife I learned who raised the watermelons he was feeding
to me. I remember wondering why he didn't pay his grocery bill with the
money he spent on pamphlets to stuff in the pockets of passers-by.

CHAPTER XXI. ENVY IS THE SULPHUR IN HUMAN PIG-IRON

While I was feasting on the watermelons and feeling at peace with all
the world, a long passenger train pulled into the junction. The train
was made up of Pullmans and each car was covered with flags, streamers
and lodge insignia. On the heels of this train came another and then
another. These gay cars were filled with members of the Knights of
Pythias going to their convention in Denver.

At the sight of these men in their Pullmans, my friend the communist
first turned pale, then green, then red. His eyes narrowed and blazed
like those of a madman. He stood up on his porch, clenched his fists and
launched into the most violent fit of cursing I ever heard. The sight of
those holiday-makers had turned him into a demon. He thought they were
capitalists. Here was the hated tribe of rich men, the idle classes, all
dressed up with flags flying, riding across the country on a jamboree.

"The blood-sucking parasites! The bleareyed barnacles!" yelled Comrade
Bannerman. He shook his fists at the plutocrats and cursed until he made
me sick. He was a tank-town nut who didn't like to work; had built up a
theory that work was a curse and that the "idle classes" had forced
this curse on the masses, of which he was one. He believed that all the
classes had to do was to clip coupons, cash them and ride around the
country in Pullman palace cars. Here was the whole bunch of them in
seven "specials" rolling right by his front door. He cursed them again
and prayed that the train