--but he was up in the ways of the world; and what would hinder
him, Ananias-like, from keeping back part of the price? When this was
shown to be an utter impossibility, they still were quite sure Winston
harbored in his secret soul some plan for cheating the workmen at the
last. Here would be all this accumulation of capital, and by some
successful _coup-d'etat_ Winston and Darcy would swoop down upon it, and
take the lion's share. They were very much afraid that the workmen were
going to be wronged in some underhand way. A defaulting cashier,
unprincipled managers, thieves and forgers, committed their crimes in an
out-and-out way; but there was going to be a profound mystery about
this--the most simple and above-board management, when every man knew,
every six months, the best and the worst of the details.

Employment was becoming more general all through the country. Everybody
drew a long breath, and decided that the grinding times of depression
had passed. We would soon be back to the brilliant era of past
prosperity.

And then there arose a new light in the labor horizon, a prophet who had
discovered the magic key to the workingmen's paradise, and it had only
to be turned by themselves, to gain entrance. Wherever he went, he was
hailed with acclamation.

It was the old, old war upon capital, the old seductive science of
equalizing things, values, money. Every poor man in the country had a
better right to a cottage and garden and a few hours of leisure, than
these few magnates to grasp every thing in their own hands, to roll in
luxury, to feast in magnificence, to clothe their daughters in silks,
velvets, and diamonds--it was to be noted that Mr. McPherson wore an
immense diamond, but it was to be presumed that his wife or daughter did
_not_. Everywhere one could see the rich growing richer, the poor
poorer, the workman trodden down, brought to the level of slavery with
his long hours and scanty wages. Where was it to end but in a nation of
paupers, of thieves, of criminals of every grade? for, when you made a
brute of a man, there came a time when he turned a brute's hand against
you. This had been the underlying cause of all the world's great
struggles: it had uncrowned kings, it had razed thrones, it had swept
states. There were bits of distorted historical facts, fallacious but
brilliant reasoning, and much bombast.

They heard of him in this city and that, and there was a great deal said
about the cordialit