eeth. Listen to him now."

Bert, his handsome face bitter and devil-may-care, had tilted his chair
back against the wall and was singing

"Nobody loves a mil-yun-aire, Nobody likes his looks, Nobody'll share
his slightest care, He classes with thugs and crooks."

Tom was saying something about reasonableness and justice, and Bert
ceased from singing to catch him up.

"Justice, eh? Another pipe-dream. I'll show you where the working class
gets justice. You remember Forbes--J. Alliston Forbes--wrecked the Alta
California Trust Company an' salted down two cold millions. I saw him
yesterday, in a big hell-bent automobile. What'd he get? Eight years'
sentence. How long did he serve? Less'n two years. Pardoned out on
account of ill health. Ill hell! We'll be dead an' rotten before he
kicks the bucket. Here. Look out this window. You see the back of that
house with the broken porch rail. Mrs. Danaker lives there. She takes
in washin'. Her old man was killed on the railroad. Nitsky on
damages--contributory negligence, or fellow-servant-something-or-other
flimflam. That's what the courts handed her. Her boy, Archie, was
sixteen. He was on the road, a regular road-kid. He blew into Fresno
an' rolled a drunk. Do you want to know how much he got? Two dollars
and eighty cents. Get that?--Two-eighty. And what did the alfalfa judge
hand'm? Fifty years. He's served eight of it already in San Quentin. And
he'll go on serving it till he croaks. Mrs. Danaker says he's bad with
consumption--caught it inside, but she ain't got the pull to get'm
pardoned. Archie the Kid steals two dollars an' eighty cents from a
drunk and gets fifty years. J. Alliston Forbes sticks up the Alta
Trust for two millions en' gets less'n two years. Who's country is
this anyway? Yourn an' Archie the Kid's? Guess again. It's J. Alliston
Forbes'--Oh:

"Nobody likes a mil-yun-aire, Nobody likes his looks, Nobody'll share
his slightest care, He classes with thugs and crooks."

Mary, at the sink, where Saxon was just finishing the last dish, untied
Saxon's apron and kissed her with the sympathy that women alone feel for
each other under the shadow of maternity.

"Now you sit down, dear. You mustn't tire yourself, and it's a long way
to go yet. I'll get your sewing for you, and you can listen to the men
talk. But don't listen to Bert. He's crazy."

Saxon sewed and listened, and Bert's face grew bleak and bitter as he
contemplated the baby clothes in her lap.