As soon as Peter was on the express he went into the smoking cabin of the sleeping-car, and lighting a cigar, took out a letter and read it over again. While he was still reading it, a voice exclaimed:
“Good! Here’s Peter. So you are in it too?” Ogden continued, as Ray and he took seats by Peter.
“I always did despise Anarchists and Nihilists,” sighed Ray, “since I was trapped into reading some of those maudlin Russian novels, with their eighth-century ideas grafted on nineteenth-century conditions. Baby brains stimulated with whisky.”
Ogden turned to Peter. “How serious is it likely to be, Colonel?”
“I haven’t any idea,” replied Peter, “The staff is of the opposite party now, and I only have a formal notification to hold my regiment in readiness. If it’s nothing but this Socialist and Anarchist talk, there is no real danger in it.”
“Why not?”
“This country can never be in danger from discontent with our government, for it’s what the majority want it to be, or if not, it is made so at the next election. That is the beauty of a Democracy. The majority always supports the government. We fight our revolutions with ballots, not with bullets.”
“Yet Most says that blood must be shed.”
“I suppose,” said Peter, “that he has just reached the stage of intelligence which doctors had attained when they bled people to make them strong.”
“What can you do with such a fellow’s talk? You can’t argue with him,” said Ogden.