"Has he got it as bad as that! 'Bad' isn't any name for it. He's the stubbornest man I over met, and he's full of the most furious hatred against the capitalists. He has it as a personal feeling. Then the life he's got is sufficient to drive a man mad."
"Selecting is pretty hard," agreed Nellie, sadly.
"Nellie and I know a little about that, Mr. Sim," said Ned.
"Well, Jones' selection is a hard one," went on Sim, goodhumouredly. "I prefer to sell trotters, when I sell out like this, to attempting it. The soil is all stones, and there is not a drop of water when the least drought comes on. Poor Jones toils like a team of horses and hardly gets sufficient to keep him alive. I never saw a man work as he does. For a man who thinks and has ideas to be buried like that in the bush is terrible. He has no one to converse with. He goes mooning about sometimes and muttering to himself enough to frighten one into a fit."
"Does he still do any printing?" asked Nellie, archly.
"Oh, the printing," answered Sim, laughing again. "He initiated me into the art of wood-engraving. You see, Mr. Hawkins"—turning to Ned— "Jones hasn't got any type, and of course he can't afford to buy it, but he's got hold of a little second-hand toy printing press. To print from he takes a piece, of wood, cut across the grain and rubbed smooth with sand, and cuts out of it the most revolutionary and blood-curdling leaflets, letter by letter. If you only have patience it's quite easy after a few weeks' practice."
"Does he print them?" asked Ned
"Print them! I should say he did. Every old scrap of paper he can collect or got sent him he prints his leaflets on and gets them distributed all over the country. Many a night I've sat up assisting with the pottering little press. Talk about Nihilism! Jones vows that there is only one way to cure things and that is to destroy the rule of Force."
"He's along while starting," remarked Nellie with a slight sneer. "Those people who talk so much never do anything."
"Oh, Jones isn't like that," answered Sim, with cheerful confidence. "He'll do anything that he thinks is worth while. But I suppose I'm horrifying you, Mr. Hawkins? Miss Lawton here knows what we are and is accustomed to our talk."