“People were very generous along the way.”
“Wasn’t there plenty to eat?” he asked, repeating the question aggressively.
“There was generally enough and sometimes plenty,” I replied. Then I added rather sharply: “I have no case to prove for the Coxeyites, if that’s what you think.”
“I know you haven’t,” he said. “I have no case to make against them either. They are out of work. That’s bad. But people who will ask need not be hungry. You can cut that out. The unemployed eat. You’ve seen it. Do the ravens feed them?”
“What are you driving at?” I asked.
“They all eat,” he repeated. “Ain’t that extraordinary?”
“It doesn’t seem so to me,” I said. “They have to eat.”
“Oh, do they?” he said. “You can eat merely because you have to, can you? Suppose there wasn’t anything to eat?”
He was turning away, with his feathers up, as if he had carried the argument. But I detained him.