"Lots of fools to do that who are no good for anything else. Why should you dirty your hands with it?"
"That isn't the way I look at it."
"It's the way you will look at it when you know a little more about it than you evidently do now. Of course, with your money you'll have a right to fritter away your time in anything you please; but as your father I feel that I ought to give you a word of warning. You wouldn't be a Masterman if you didn't need it—on that score?"
"What score?"
"The score of being caught by every humbugging socialistic scheme—"
"I'm not a socialist, father."
"Well, what are you? I thought you were."
"I'm not now. I've passed that phase."
"That's something to the good, at any rate."
"With politics in this country as they are—and so many alien peoples to be licked into shape—it's no use looking for the state to undertake anything progressive for another two hundred years."