"What's this now?" said the pretty Mrs. Ellison to the young man, as he came and pulled in a chair and sate down by her. "Haven't you had any dinner?"
"Good little children come in with dessert," said he, as he carelessly helped himself to some olives and a glass of claret. "It's too hot to eat food--unusual for May, isn't it? Besides I had a late luncheon with Lord Musselburgh."
"Lord Musselburgh?" put in Mr. Ogden. "I wonder when his lordship is going to tell us what he means to be--an owner of racehorses, or a yachtsman, or a statesman? It seems to me he can't make up his own mind; and the public don't know whether to take him seriously or not."
"Lord Musselburgh," said Vincent, firing up in defence of his friend, "is an English gentleman, who thinks he ought to support English institutions:--and I dare say that is why he does not find saving grace in the caucus."
Perhaps there was more rudeness than point in this remark; but Mrs. Ellison's eyes laughed--decorously and unobserved. She said aloud--
"For my part, I consider Lord Musselburgh a very admirable young man: he has offered me the box-seat on his coach at the next Meet of the Four-in-Hand Club."
"And are you going, aunt?" her nephew asked.
"Rather rash of Musselburgh, isn't it?" he observed, in a casual sort of way.
"What attention is he likely to pay to his team, if you are sitting beside him?"
"None of your impertinence, sir," said she (but she was pleased all the same). "Boys must not say such things to their grandmothers."
Now the advent of Master Vin was opportune; for Mr. Harris, finding that his sister-in-law had now some one of like mind to talk to, left those two frivolous persons alone, and addressed himself exclusively to his bulky friend from the north. And his discourse took the form of pointing out what were the practical and definite aims that Socialism had to place before itself. As to general principles, all thinking men were agreed. Every one who had remarked the signs of the times knew that the next great movement in modern life must be the emancipation of the wage-slave. The tyranny of the capitalist--worse than any tyranny that existed under the feudal system--must be cribbed and confined: too long had he gorged himself with the fruits of the labours of his fellow-creatures. The most despicable of tyrants, he; not only robbing and plundering the hapless beings at his mercy, but debasing their lives, depriving them of their individualism, of the self-respect which was the birthright of the humblest handicraftsman of the middle ages, and making of them mere machines for the purpose of filling his pockets with useless and inordinate wealth. What was to be done, then?--what were the immediate steps to be taken in order to alter this system of monstrous and abominable plunder. It was all very well to make processions to Père Lachaise, and wave red flags, and wax eloquent over the graves of the Communists; but there was wanted something more than talk, something more than a tribute to the memory of the martyrs, something actual to engage our own efforts, if the poor man was not to be for ever ground to the dust, himself and his starving family, by the relentless plutocrat and his convenient freedom of contract. Let the State, then--that engine of oppression which had been invented by the rich--now see whether it could not do something for all classes under its care: let it consider the proletariat as well as the unscrupulous landlords and the sordid and selfish bourgeoisie. Already it was working the Telegraphs, the Post Office, the Parcels Post, the Dockyards, and Savings Banks; and if it regulated the wages it paid by the wage-rate of the outside market, that was because it followed the wicked old system of unequal distribution of profit that was soon to be destroyed. That would speedily be amended. What further, then? The land for the people, first of all. As clear as daylight was the right of the people to the land: let the State assume possession, and manage it--its mines and minerals, its agriculture, its public grounds and parks--for the benefit of all, not for the profit of a pampered few. The State must buy and own the railways, must establish Communal centres of distribution for the purchase and exchange of goods, must establish systems of credit, must break down monopoly everywhere, and the iron power of commercialism that was crushing the life out of the masses of the population. The State must organise production, so that each man shall do his share of work demanded by the community, and no more----