“Come now,” I said, “don’t blame the capitalists for that. Democracy would be a farce if there never was such a thing as a capitalist.”
“Not content with that,” said Gorman, “they keep an iron grip upon industry. They fatten on the fruits of other men’s brains. They hold the working man in thrall, exploiting his energy for their own selfish greed, starving his women and children——”
Gorman ought to keep that sort of thing for public meetings. It is thoroughly bad form to make speeches to an audience of one. I must say that he seldom does. I suppose that his intimate association with Mrs. Ascher had spoiled his manners in this respect. She encouraged him to be oratorical. But I am not Mrs. Ascher, and I saw no reason why I should stand that kind of thing at my own dinner table.
“But the day is coming,” I said, “when organised labour will rise in its might and claim its heritage in the fair world which lies bathed in the sunlight of a nobler age.”
Gorman looked at me doubtfully for an instant, only for a single instant. Almost immediately his eyes twinkled and he smiled good-humouredly.
“You ought to go in for politics,” he said. “You really ought. I apologise. Can’t think what came over me to talk like that.”
I cannot resist Gorman when he smiles. I felt that I too owed an apology.
“After all,” I said, “you must practise somewhere. I don’t blame you in the least; though I don’t profess to like it. No one can do that sort of thing extempore and if it happens to suit you to rehearse at dinner——”
“Nonsense,” said Gorman. “There’s not the slightest necessity for practice. I could do it by the hour and work sums in my head at the same time. Any one could.”
Gorman is modest. Very few people can make speeches like his, fortunately for the world.