After the first convulsion which his entrance had caused, the different men had all fallen back languidly in their places; but now Wentworth lifted himself lazily and came down toward Aurelian and the agitator. "Well, citoyen," he said, nothing abashed by his fantastic garb, which was far enough from being the same in which he generally met McCann, "Well, citoyen, you come as a visitant from another world, like the black steamers that crawl into the balmy vision known to the children of men as Venice,—in it, not of it. Can you bring a tale of the things without? Is there anything worthy of note in Philistia? How fare our friends the republics of the world, there in the outer darkness?"
"Oh," said McCann, with indifference, "there is another revolution on down in Guatemala, and one expected daily in Brazil, and one in the French Republic—"
"And the smoke not yet cleared away from the last revolution in Brazil, nor yet from the last in Chile, nor yet from the last in Honduras; wars in half the republics in South and Central America, rumours of wars in Mexico and all the rest; the French Republic counting the days that already are numbered by its dupes at length undeceived,—I know the whole grotesque story, and yet people talk about popular sovereignty and republics. And you yourselves, McCann, bon citoyen, you agitators and socialists, hug to yourselves the vain phantom of popular government. You ought to know better, for you know something of sociology if you are sweetly ignorant on politics. What was that Balzac said, Aurelian? Tell me."
"About popular government, you mean?"
"Yes."
"Why, he called it the only government that is irresponsible and whose tyranny will be unchecked because exercised under the name of law."
"Ah, this is it! Isn't that exact? 'A bas la République,' the King shall come to his own again!" and he sung the words gaily to a fragment of an old Jacobite air. "Don't interrupt me, Aurelian, the spirit is on me and I must confound this blind leader." His tone changed and he put his hand on McCann's shoulder. "Malcolm, you know as we all know here that the present condition of this happy world is very like the Puritan idea of hell. You know, also, that the preserving factor, if not the original cause of this pleasant state of affairs, is the modern theory of economics and its resulting industrial and commercial systems. Now, what do you propose to substitute in place of this gigantic abortion, this debauching incubus?"
"State Socialism."
"Exactly! Out of your own mouth have you condemned yourself. Man, man! what would your State Socialism be in the hands of such a State as we have now? In Chile? In Mexico? In any ring-ruled mob-ruled State in this unhealthy republic? Why, simply the biggest and most wholesale 'job,' the most arrant corruption, the most awful and omnipotent succubus that ever waxed fat on the blood of a dying nation. Malcolm, you and your ilk have made a dreary mistake; you think only of industrial reforms, while to make these of effect you must first have a political reform which will be in itself a revolution. Destroy the present system, build up an honourable State, and then it will be time to talk of State Socialism."