When I went back to the parlour, I found the Doctor preparing to go.
“There is one thing that can be said about the Altruist,” she remarked, fastening her gloves with a snap. “He may know a great deal about God, but he knows precious little about men and women.”
CHAPTER XXIX
We found the Anarchist at his own fireside, playing with a kitten. Two children stood at his knee, and he was telling them stories, while the kitten made dashes at his long gray beard.
He lived in one of the workmen’s houses that have lately sprung up on the outskirts of the city. They are two-story houses, made of brick, with narrow windows and narrow stone doorsteps. Standing, row after row in uniform regularity, they look like blocks made for some queer game which nobody ever plays.
The Anarchist reached out both hands to me with a cordial smile. He was doubly cordial when I introduced the Tailoress and told him why I had come.
That was right, he said, as he seated us in great wooden rocking-chairs. We were starting a movement in the right direction. Organization alone could protect women against atrociously low wages and against long hours of work. They were now absolutely at the mercy of their employers.
“There ain’t no animal,” said the Anarchist, raising his arm in a sweeping gesture, “that gets so little wage in proportion to its work as half the women in this city. And that’s because they don’t organize. They ain’t got the fraternity spirit. They’re comin’ on, but in one respect the men’s ahead. The Brotherhood of Man is fur outstrippin’ the Sisterhood of Women!
“But draw up by the fire and warm ye,” he added, dropping the tone of a demagogue for a natural voice. “It’s a right cold day out-doors.”
The Anarchist’s large, patriarchal figure looked out of place in this tiny sitting-room. His gray age emphasized the newness of his surroundings. He should have for a background, I thought, the great elms and weather-beaten porches of an ancestral farmhouse, instead of the gaudy wall-paper and cheap, stained wood-work of this roughly finished room.