The Apple of Discord. Earle Ashley Walcott

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СКАЧАТЬ don't vant ze trouble," he had begun, when I caught sight of my man at a table in the alcove at the other end of the long room.

      "There he is now," I interrupted. "There'll be no trouble, if you don't make it yourself."

      I was gone before H. Blasius had brought his wits to understand my meaning, and in a moment stood beside a group of men who were sitting around the farther table, beer glasses before them and pipes in hand, listening to an excited young man with a shock of long, tawny hair, who pounded the table to strengthen the force of his argument. As he came to a pause, I put my hand on the shoulder of a tall, awkward, spare-built man, with a stubby red beard, who was listening with effort, and evidently burning to reply to the fervid young orator. It was Clark, and he rose clumsily and shook hands with effusion.

      "I'm glad you come, Mr. Hampden; I'd about give you up. Boys, this is Mr. Hampden, the friend I was telling you about. Won't you take this chair, sir, and spend the evening with us? We was having a little discussion about the Revolution."

      "The Revolution!" I exclaimed. "Well, that's a safe antiquarian topic."

      "Oh," stammered Clark, "it isn't the old Revolution. That's too far back for us. It's the coming Revolution we're talking about, when all men are to be equal and share alike in the good things of the earth. Parks, here, thinks he knows all about it." And he waved his hand toward the oratorical young man, who looked on the world with eyes that seemed to burn with the light of fever.

      Parks accepted this as an introduction, and acknowledged it with a nod as I took a seat. I looked at him with keen interest, for I knew his name as one of the nine leaders who had banded themselves to right the wrongs of the world–with the incidental assistance of Peter Bolton. Then I looked about the rest of the group as Clark spoke their names, and was disappointed to find that a little spectacled German, with a bristling black beard, was the only other member of the Council at the table.

      "Hope to know you better, Mr. Hampden," said Parks. "You don't look to be one of us."

      "If it's a secret society, I can't say that I've been initiated," I said. "But I hope you'll count me as one of you for an occasional evening. What do you happen to be, if I may ask?"

      "We," said Parks, leaning forward and gazing fiercely into my eyes, "we represent the people. We are from the masses."

      "I'm afraid, then," I returned with a laugh, "you'll have to count me as one of you. I can't think of any way in which my name gets above the level of the lower ten million."

      "Sir," cried Parks, shaking his finger in my face and speaking rapidly and excitedly, "your speech betrays you. You speak of the lower ten million. They are not the lower–no, by Heaven! Your heart is not with the people. There is nothing in you that beats responsive to their cry of distress. You may be as poor as the rest of us, but your feelings, your prejudices are with the despoilers of labor, the oppressors of the lowly. You are–"

      What further offense of aristocracy he would have charged upon my head I know not, for Clark reached over and seized his arm.

      "Hold on!" he cried. "Mr. Hampden is our guest and a good fellow, so don't be too hard on him. He ain't educated yet. That's all the matter with him. Give him time."

      Parks' voice had been rising and his utterance had been growing more rapid and excited, but he lowered his tones once more.

      "No offense, Hampden, but my blood boils at the wrongs inflicted on the downtrodden slaves of the wage system, and I speak my mind."

      "Oh, go ahead," I said. "It doesn't worry me. Come to think of it, Mr. Parks, you don't seem to be one of the slaves of the wage system yourself. You are, I take it from your words and ways, a man of education and something more."

      "Sir," said Parks, striking the table angrily, "it is my misfortune."

      "Misfortune?" I laughed inquiringly, and the others laughed in sympathy.

      "Misfortune–yes, sir. I repeat it. I have had schooling and to spare. And if it wasn't for that, I could raise this city in arms in a month."

      My left-hand neighbor was an old man, a little bent with years, who had been looking about the table with dreamy eye. But at Parks' boastful words his face lighted and he gave a cackling laugh.

      "Heh, heh! He's right," he said, addressing the rest of us. "There's a crowd of thieves and robbers on top and they need a taking-down. Parks is just the one to do it."

      "You're wrong, Merwin," said Parks, calming down and looking at the old man reflectively. "I'm not the one to do it."

      "And why not?" I asked.

      "It's the cursed education you speak of," said Parks fiercely. "I am with the masses, but not of them. They mistrust me. Try as I will I can't get their confidence. I can't rouse them. They shout for me, they applaud me, but I can't stir them as they must be stirred before the Revolution can begin."

      "What sort of man do you want?" I asked.

      "He must be a man of the people," said Parks.

      "By which you mean a day-laborer, I judge."

      Parks ignored the interruption and went on:

      "He must have eloquence, courage, and he must understand men; he must be a statesman by nature–a man of brains. But he must be one of the class he addresses."

      "But how are you going to get a man of brains out of that class?" I inquired.

      Parks struck the table a sounding blow with his fist, shook his head until his shock of hair stood out in protest, and glared at me fiercely.

      "Do you mean to deny," he began hotly, "that brains are born to what you call the lowest classes? Do you deny the divine spark of intelligence to the sons of toil? Do you say that genius is sent to the houses of the rich and not to those of the poor? Do you dare to say that the son of a banker may have brains and that the son of a hodman may not?"

      "By no means, my dear fellow. I only say if he has brains he won't be a hodman."

      "I've known some pretty smart hodmen in my time," said Clark, when he saw that Parks had no answer ready. "I knew a fellow who made four hundred dollars on a contract. But," he added regretfully, "he lost it in stocks."

      "I'm afraid that instance doesn't prove anything, Clark," said Merwin with a thin laugh. "He should have had brains enough to keep out of stocks."

      "There's not many as has that," said a heavy-jowled Englishman who sat across the table. "I wish I had 'em myself."

      "I'm afraid you're right, Mr. Hampden," said Clark. "We can't get a leader from the hodman class."

      Parks leaned forward and spoke quietly and impressively.

      "By God, we must!" he said. "I'll be the brains. I'll find the hodman for the mouth, and I'll teach him to talk in a way to set the world on fire."

      "And then what?" I asked.

      Parks gave his head a shake, and closed his lips tightly as though he feared that some secret would escape them. But the excitable little German with spectacles and a bushy black beard gave me an answer.

      "Leeberty, equality, fraternity!" he exclaimed.

      "And justice," added the heavy-jowled Englishman.

      "These are СКАЧАТЬ