"Why, what's the matter?" I asked with exuberant spirit. "You look like the day after the fight."
He looked resentfully at me, with a sad shake of the head.
"Sir," he exclaimed, "it is unfair to jest. I have suffered the burial of my hopes. I am done with the affairs of life."
"What!" I cried. "Have you given up the revolution? Have you abandoned the battle for the rights of the people?"
"The people be damned!" responded Parks angrily. "Why should I give my life to fight for those who won't fight for themselves? Why should I scheme for the slaves who have not the sense to follow the leaders who point the way to emancipation? We perfect our plans to free them from the oppressions of a capitalistic government, and when we call on them to take arms and follow us they fall to robbing Chinamen. When I appeal to them to follow me to the City Hall instead of the wash-house, the response I get is a black eye. That's my reward for devotion to the rights of the people."
"It must have been a most demonstrative meeting," I replied without a trace of sympathy, "and it did one good thing, for it knocked some sense into you."
"Hampden," said Parks, with a lofty air that made a comic contrast with his flaming eye, "I forgive you the expression. But I assure you I retract nothing of my views. What I have learned is that the great era for which I have worked can not be brought about by men who understand neither their wrongs nor their rights. We must educate them until they see the truth."
"Oh, then I suppose you are on your way to the City Hall to get your leather-lunged orator out of jail to resume his teachings?"
Parks flushed angrily.
"Kearney?" he cried. "He can rot in his cell for anything I will do to get him out. I refuse, sir, to voice the suspicions that I have been forced to entertain, but he is a hindrance, not an aid to the cause of the people. They must be taught the large truths, not the little truths, if they are to act wisely. Let us not mention his name."