STRAKER. [graciously] Now you're talking.
TANNER. Are you all Socialists here, may I ask?
MENDOZA. [repudiating this humiliating misconception] Oh no, no, no: nothing of the kind, I assure you. We naturally have modern views as to the justice of the existing distribution of wealth: otherwise we should lose our self-respect. But nothing that you could take exception to, except two or three faddists.
TANNER. I had no intention of suggesting anything discreditable. In fact, I am a bit of a Socialist myself.
STRAKER. [drily] Most rich men are, I notice.
MENDOZA. Quite so. It has reached us, I admit. It is in the air of the century.
STRAKER. Socialism must be looking up a bit if your chaps are taking to it.
MENDOZA. That is true, sir. A movement which is confined to philosophers and honest men can never exercise any real political influence: there are too few of them. Until a movement shows itself capable of spreading among brigands, it can never hope for a political majority.
TANNER. But are your brigands any less honest than ordinary citizens?
MENDOZA. Sir: I will be frank with you. Brigandage is abnormal. Abnormal professions attract two classes: those who are not good enough for ordinary bourgeois life and those who are too good for it. We are dregs and scum, sir: the dregs very filthy, the scum very superior.