“Well,” asked Karl Metzerott as he rose from the table, “have you finished your inspection? or do you want that boy of mine again this afternoon?”
“Thanks, I think we have seen everything,” replied the guest in his courteous manner; “I hope the interruption has not been a serious annoyance to you!”
“Well, good workmen don’t grow on trees, and we have plenty of work on hand,” said the shoemaker.
“Ah!” affirmatively, yet somehow conveying to the shoemaker that he had been a bear. “I assure you the morning has been one both of pleasure and profit to me; but I want to ask you just one question. Are you a Socialist?”
“I’m a Socialist bred and a Socialist born, and when I’m dead there’s a Socialist gone,” replied the shoemaker with grim humor.
“And you would like to see the United States of America one great commune?”
“I intend to see it.”
“Then don’t you see that such institutions as ‘Prices,’ by making the workingman more contented, and his life an easier one, are really defeating your own object?”
“He don’t,” said Father McClosky, indicating Mr. Clare, whose blue eyes suddenly flamed up; “but, then, he never argues.”
“It depends upon what Mr. Metzerott’s object is,” said the carpenter parson quietly. “As I understand it, ‘Prices’ took its rise in the endeavor to make life not only easier but possible to those whose name it bears. If the Commune come, or when it comes, ‘Prices’ will be found to have done good work in training citizens for it; meanwhile, life is made easier for hundreds.”