made no attempt to answer. Why? Is it because you
have no answer? You are the champion of this whole audience. Every
one here, except me, is hanging on your lips for that answer. They
are hanging on your lips for that answer because they have no answer
themselves. As for me, as I said before, I know that you not only cannot
answer, but that you will not attempt an answer."

"This is intolerable!" Colonel Van Gilbert cried out. "This is insult!"

"That you should not answer is intolerable," Ernest replied gravely.
"No man can be intellectually insulted. Insult, in its very nature,
is emotional. Recover yourself. Give me an intellectual answer to my
intellectual charge that the capitalist class has mismanaged society."

Colonel Van Gilbert remained silent, a sullen, superior expression on
his face, such as will appear on the face of a man who will not bandy
words with a ruffian.

"Do not be downcast," Ernest said. "Take consolation in the fact that
no member of your class has ever yet answered that charge." He turned to
the other men who were anxious to speak. "And now it's your chance. Fire
away, and do not forget that I here challenge you to give the answer
that Colonel Van Gilbert has failed to give."

It would be impossible for me to write all that was said in the
discussion. I never realized before how many words could be spoken in
three short hours. At any rate, it was glorious. The more his opponents
grew excited, the more Ernest deliberately excited them. He had an
encyclopaedic command of the field of knowledge, and by a word or a
phrase, by delicate rapier thrusts, he punctured them. He named the
points of their illogic. This was a false syllogism, that conclusion had
no connection with the premise, while that next premise was an impostor
because it had cunningly hidden in it the conclusion that was being
attempted to be proved. This was an error, that was an assumption, and
the next was an assertion contrary to ascertained truth as printed in
all the text-books.

And so it went. Sometimes he exchanged the rapier for the club and went
smashing amongst their thoughts right and left. And always he demanded
facts and refused to discuss theories. And his facts made for them a
Waterloo. When they attacked the working class, he always retorted, "The
pot calling the kettle black; that is no answer to the charge that
your own face is dirty." And to one and all he said: "Why have you not
answered the charge that y