"We are doing our best," said I.
"It is written that the free should be brothers and equal," said the professor, with a laugh.
"I never knew two brothers who were equal," said Carvel, in reflective tones. "I do not know why the ideal freedom and equality, attaching to the ideal brothers, should not be as good as any other visionary aim for tangible earthly government; but it certainly does not seem so easy of realization, nor so sound in the working, as our good English principle that exceptions prove the rule, and that the more exceptions there are the better the rule will be."
"Is that speech an attack upon American freedom?" asked the professor, laughing a little. "I believe Mr. Griggs is an American."
"No, indeed. Why should I attack American freedom?" said John.
"American freedom is not so easily attacked," I remarked. "It eludes definition and rejects political paradox. No one ever connects our republic with the fashionable liberty-fraternity-and-equality doctrines of European emancipation; still less with the communistic idea that, although men have very different capacities for originating things, all men have an equal right to destroy them."
"Griggs is mounted upon his hobby," remarked John Carvel, stretching his feet out towards the fire. The professor turned the light of his spectacles upon me, and puffed a cloud of smoke.
"Are you a political enthusiast and a rider of hobby-horses, Mr. Griggs?" he asked.
"I do not know; you must ask our host."
"Pardon me. I think you know very well," said the professor. "I should say you belonged to a class of persons who know very well what they think."