“What’s that—a Socialist?”
“I can’t tell you. Nobody knows. But really, I suppose, a Socialist is a man born before the world got used to steam and electricity. Those things made a lot of changes, you see, and in the confusion some people didn’t get quite as square a deal as they deserved; or at least, they didn’t think they had. It takes time, really, as I suppose, to settle down after any great change. It’s like moving a house.”
“I see,” said Jimmy sagely. “But, Black Bart, you always seemed to me like as if, now, well, like you was studyin’ or something, somehow. Ain’t you never had no good times before?”
“No. This is about the first really good time I ever had in all my life. You see, you can’t really understand things that you look at from a long way off—you’ve got to get right in with folks to know what folks are. Don’t you think so?”
“I know it!” answered Jimmy, with conviction. And I recalled, though he did not, the fact that he bathed daily, Lafitte weekly, yet no gulf was fixed between their portions of the general humanity.
“It must be nice to be rich,” ventured Lafitte presently. “I’m going to be, some day.”
“Is that why you go a-pirating?” I smiled.
“Maybe. But mostly, because I like it.”
“It’s a sort of game,” said L’Olonnois.
“All life is a sort of game, my hearties,” said I. “What you two just have said covers most of the noble trade of piracy and nearly all of the pretty game of life. You are wise as I am, wise as any man, indeed.”