"Everything then, my friend. Your present plans would end in nothing. Not only would you fail to do anything real for the people, but you yourself would be stultified. A Labour Member! What is he?—a man who, socially, is patronised; who is recognised only on sufferance; who, if he marries, must marry a commoner, a woman of the people, with all her limitations. Oh, I know, I know. And meanwhile the working people still continue to be trodden underfoot, and who toil for what they can squeeze out of their employers—their social superiors. Yes, yes, you are impatient with me. You say I am a long time in getting to my point. But be patient, my friend; I will get there. I only want you to realise the truth."
"Then please get to your point," urged Dick a little impatiently.
"I will," replied Mr. John Brown, and he placed his chubby hand on Dick's knee. "Here is the fact, my friend: we live in a time when nothing is impossible. The world is in travail, in wild convulsions. The new channels of life are not made. All the forces of life are in a state of flux. Now is the time for the real leader, the strong man. The great proletariat is waiting for that leader, longing for him. The people are tired of the old worn pathways; they are waiting for the new kingdom, the new deliverer."
"You are still in the clouds," cried Dick. "Come down to the solid earth."
"I will, my friend. England is ripe for real reform, ripe for the new order. The open sores of the country cannot be healed by sticking-plasters. They must be cauterised; the cancers must be cut out. In one word—Revolution!"
Dick started to his feet, and took a hasty glance around the room. For a wonder, it was empty. They were alone.
"You are mad!" he cried.
"Of course I am," laughed Mr. Brown. "Every man is called mad who sees a new heaven and a new earth. But, my friend, I speak as an Englishman, as one who loves his country. I am a patriot, and I want to see a greater, grander England. I want to see a Britain that shall be happy, prosperous, contented. I want to destroy poverty, to smash up the old order of things—an order which has dragged squalor, misery, poverty, injustice, inequality at its heels. I am tired—tired of seeing criminal wealth and mad luxury and waste on the one hand, and abject grinding poverty on the other. And to cure it all you must go to the roots of things; there must be great upheavals, revolutions. The land must be the people's, the mineral must be the people's, the water, the food, the wealth, the Army, the Navy, the everything must belong to the people."
"Bolshevism!" The word came from him abruptly—angrily.
"Yes, Bolshevism," replied the other; "and what then?"