lace of fire. He studied the composition of
food-stuffs, and knew exactly how many proteids and carbohydrates his
body needed; and by scientific chewing he said that he tripled the value
of all he ate, so that it cost him eleven cents a day. About the first
of July he would leave Chicago for his vacation, on foot; and when he
struck the harvest fields he would set to work for two dollars and a
half a day, and come home when he had another year's supply--a hundred
and twenty-five dollars. That was the nearest approach to independence
a man could make "under capitalism," he explained; he would never marry,
for no sane man would allow himself to fall in love until after the
revolution.

He sat in a big arm-chair, with his legs crossed, and his head so far in
the shadow that one saw only two glowing lights, reflected from the fire
on the hearth. He spoke simply, and utterly without emotion; with the
manner of a teacher setting forth to a group of scholars an axiom in
geometry, he would enunciate such propositions as made the hair of
an ordinary person rise on end. And when the auditor had asserted
his non-comprehension, he would proceed to elucidate by some new
proposition, yet more appalling. To Jurgis the Herr Dr. Schliemann
assumed the proportions of a thunderstorm or an earthquake. And yet,
strange as it might seem, there was a subtle bond between them, and he
could follow the argument nearly all the time. He was carried over the
difficult places in spite of himself; and he went plunging away in mad
career--a very Mazeppa-ride upon the wild horse Speculation.

Nicholas Schliemann was familiar with all the universe, and with man
as a small part of it. He understood human institutions, and blew them
about like soap bubbles. It was surprising that so much destructiveness
could be contained in one human mind. Was it government? The purpose
of government was the guarding of property-rights, the perpetuation
of ancient force and modern fraud. Or was it marriage? Marriage
and prostitution were two sides of one shield, the predatory man's
exploitation of the sex-pleasure. The difference between them was a
difference of class. If a woman had money she might dictate her own
terms: equality, a life contract, and the legitimacy--that is, the
property-rights--of her children. If she had no money, she was a
proletarian, and sold herself for an existence. And then the subject
became Religion, which was the Archfiend's deadliest weapo