"And would you be caring to exchange with one of them?" persisted Mr. Dunlop, as he accepted the slice of partridge.
"Why, no, of course, it wouldn't suit me any more than my work would suit them."
"That's a very fallacious test of yours, Mr. Dunlop," interposed the sagacious Mr. Wharton. "As Mr. Pomeroy says, what would suit one wouldn't suit another. And then, the environment we are accustomed to counts for something. Our friend here, accustomed to his charming surroundings, as a matter of course, could not lose them without real deprivation. But a man unused to them would find them only a burden. Depend upon it, things in this world find their own level after all."
"Of course they do," rejoined Mr. Pomeroy; "as for all this talk about 'Fraternity and Equality,' the stuff such people as this Graeme are so fond of spouting—poisonous trash!—it's simply making people discontented with the inevitable conditions of life, and doing them no possible good. It's so much rank poison, morally speaking, is it not, Mr. Chillingworth?"
The clergyman had been listening silently, but he now readily responded. "Oh, there is no doubt in my mind that all the evils complained of—and no doubt there are some hardships—can be remedied in only one way, in the spread of the Christian spirit of love and service which must eventually prevail over selfish and partial views."
"And that would probably have been your verdict, in the last generation, as against abolitionists like Garrison and Phillips and Whittier, would it not?" remarked Mr. Archer, in his even, cool, slightly satirical tones. "Slavery would die out gradually, as the Christian spirit spread among the planters. But then, the question would have been, again, Who should begin? Slave-holder number one wouldn't want to begin till slave-holder number two did; so it would be difficult to see how the reformation would get started."
"Come now, Philip!" said Mrs. Pomeroy. The young man was a distant relation of hers, and took liberties accordingly. "You don't mean to put us all on a level with slave-holders, surely! This is a free country, I should hope; and no one is called on to do more for his employés than he conveniently can."
"Ah, now, my dear cousin, that's a delightful sort of philosophy! Do you know, I've sometimes found it inconvenient to pay my clerks, when I had been going in heavily for opera-tickets—I'm glad to think I'm not called on to do more than I conveniently can."
Philip Archer could always turn the most serious argument into a joke when he pleased—and he always pleased at a certain point—but Mr. Wharton was not going to let him off so easily.
"Of course you were not serious in that analogy of yours," he said. "There can be no parallel between a distinct wrong to humanity, and purely relative matters like wages and hours."