Leaning back in his chair, smoking a good cigar, the younger man had listened tolerantly to the talk. He spoke now, not to defend Kathleen who, he knew, was a captain in dialectics where he was a cabin boy, but to sound his note of confident optimism.
"The good time has come to more children than formerly," the Major answered, "but those who can really bask in the sunshine are few."
"They are very many." The young man spoke in a cheerful, assertive manner. "And the others will later receive their due. We must wait for the slow processes of evolution."
He looked about the company, his pleasant mouth smiling, his eyes shining good-will; but when his glance encountered the Major his countenance dropped. That former soldier eyed him as he might in the old days have eyed a sentry caught asleep at his post.
"The slow processes of evolution," the Major said, contempt in every drawling word. "Did man wait for the slow processes of evolution that you are so glib about, when he invented the machinery that sucked up and still sucks up the life of the child? If you're not incredibly ignorant you know that man does not leave nature to go her slow way, but makes changes with the rapidity of lightning. Two things, though, never change," lifting up two long fingers, "poverty and greed."
Applebaum put down his cigar, his face flushed with anger; but, looking across at Hertha, his brow cleared. She was smiling at him—a grateful smile—as though to thank him for drawing the fire from her quarter. Kathleen, too, had a relieved expression upon her face. Girding up his loins, he decided to continue the discussion though he might later be forced to retreat. It was scarcely a fair fight when one of the contestants had the handicap of venerable age.
"Surely," he said augmentatively, "times have improved with some rapidity. There are fewer of the poor and oppressed than there were one hundred years ago."
"How do you know?" the Major asked.
While Applebaum drew breath to summon his facts in proof of progress, the Major answered his own question as though his opponent were already disposed of.
"Small thievery is controlled," he said; "held in check better than formerly. Sturdy beggars are not so often seen in the market-place. But these men rarely stole from the poor. Your powerful thief, however, never had so good a chance as to-day. There's no government he cannot buy, and our rapid means of transportation make it possible for him to gather a harvest from more fields than were gleaned by his cleverest and most rapacious predecessors."