“It is more than a sane fellow can comprehend—madness, I call it,” he said, between the whiffs; “throwing money away on the lower orders. I told John so this morning; and what do you think he said?”
“I cannot tell, indeed; something about universal brotherhood or other nonsense of the same kind,” said John’s mother.
“He said there were no lower orders!”
“Indeed?”
“Yes; he said there must always be masters and men—persons who represented property and persons who represented labour: those who worked with the head and those who worked with the hands; but no Christian man had a right to selfishly keep his riches to himself; and that in this country, with all the money that is going, no one ought to know the meaning of the word ‘poverty’; and that it was adding insult to injury to speak of lower orders.”
“And what did you say?”
“‘Bosh!’ and he said ‘Perhaps,’ and then I said ‘Rot!’ and he laughed. And I told him he was going dead against the Bible, and casting pearls before swine; and that, instead of thanking him, they would turn again and rend him. And he said he was not doing it in the hope of getting thanks, and was paid as he went on, whatever that might mean; and I called him a fool.”
“You did?”
“Yes, I did; but I thought it better not to let him hear me.”
“He will bring ruin upon us all with these stupid, new-fangled notions.”