Then he stopped short and pulled out of a breeches’ pocket a gold cigarette case.
“Isn’t it a beauty?” he asked. “I paid what lots of people I know could live on for months and months for this.”
“But—” she began, bewildered.
“I suppose you’re wondering what a fellow with views like mine is doing with a toy like that. Well, in the first place, it isn’t a dead loss. After I’ve used it a few years more, I’ll sell it or pawn it for quite a lot. It’s solid gold, you know; one of the best I could buy. Isn’t it a beauty?”
“Yes, it is!” she agreed, terribly touched by his naïve pride. “It is—a beauty!”
What an extraordinary conversation this was, she and this freckled young man, sitting facing each other on great sun-warmed rocks in the little glade which she had for weeks looked upon as her especial domain! She had certainly never met anything at all like him before, no one so absurd and so honest and so touching.
“But I was going to tell you why I had this thing,” he continued. “It’s because I think everyone’s got a right to a few pet follies. Now, some people think a Socialist can’t consistently have a balance in the bank. Well, my idea is this.... I’ve been able to grab for myself my share in the good things in the world. And that’s what I want to see every other fellow do. Not grab, if you could get it any other way, but generally you can’t. I want everyone to get a share. And a chance. I’ve got mine, and I’m going to help other people to get theirs.”
“But how did you get yours?” she asked, with an irresistible curiosity. She knew that he wouldn’t resent any sort of question.
“Fought for it. Fought for it like a devil. You see, I’d made a little invention—an improvement for a certain type of printing press. I’ll explain it all some other time. Well, of course, the fellows on top wanted to take it.... I won’t go into that either just now. But, anyway, I knew. I knew the profit it would make, and I made up my mind that a good part of that profit was coming my way. So I grabbed my share. It’s what everyone ought to have; a decent share in the profit of his work. It was a good kind of grabbing.... And now I’m able to do what I’d like to see every other fellow in the world able to do—work hard, at some kind of useful, manual work until he’s thirty, and then play for three or four years, before he settles down to work his brain. Brains aren’t much good until they’ve had those two things—manual work and play.”
“What is your brain going to do?”