It was in the larger houses that Edward gained the few adherents that were the meagre result of the morning's visiting. Most of these houses were so crammed with furniture and foolish and tasteless ornaments that it was almost impossible to move in them, for their owners were compelled to go on buying. I noticed that Edward's mention of Mr. Bolster's glorious breaking of glass had more effect than any of his arguments. I would mark the eyes of the man—it was nearly always a man to whom he was speaking—brighten, as he looked furtively round the room, and fed his imagination on one glorious crowded ten minutes, in which he would demolish every detested article around him. And indeed one gentleman, in a vast saloon containing several hundreds of China and glass ornaments, began then and there. We left him whooping with joy as he made a determined onslaught on them with a poker.
Edward was frankly disappointed at the result of his campaign. "What is the good of trying to help them?" he asked. "They will not help themselves. I sometimes ask myself if most of them really desire to be poor, and to gain all the benefits of character that come from poverty."
"Probably not," I replied. "If you were to take away the obligation of over-stuffing themselves with food and their houses with furniture, and give them servants they could order about, I should think they would consider themselves well-off."
"I am afraid you are right," said Edward, with a sigh. "I verily believe that if we had offered to take money from all the people we have visited, instead of asking them to bestir themselves to gain their own freedom, our morning would have been a triumphant success."
"Well, shall we try?" I suggested. "There is still time."
But Edward scoffed at the idea of mere indiscriminate charity. "It would only be tinkering at the disease," he said. "I want to cure it."
[CHAPTER XXIV]
Edward now announced his intention of going in to Culbut to call on a Cabinet Minister of advanced Radical views.