"Insultin'!" the man blazed. "Who's insultin'? It's you who are insultin' to God's earth—rich folks like you who've got more money that ain't yours by rights than you know what to do with. You think because you pay the bill you own the earth and every man on it. But you don't—not everybody! And the quicker you and your kind learn that the easier it will be for all of us."
This was what Major Pound meant by "anarchy among the working-classes." She had often heard him and Nelson Carhart deplore this,—using interchangeably the two dread terms, "socialism" and "anarchy." Both the gentlemen were of the opinion that "before we see an end to this spirit in the working-classes, we shall have bloodshed." But it was the first time Adelle had met the thing face to face, and it gave her a faint thrill. She tried to think of some of Major Pound's excellent arguments directed against the "anarchy" of the laboring-classes.
"You're paid good wages, very high wages," she said after a time, remembering that that was one of the grievances gentlemen most often complained of—that laborers were paid altogether too much, thanks to the unions, so that no profit was left for the men who supplied capital, and also that they did less work and poorer work than they had once done when they got only half the wages now paid.
"You think five dollars a day is big money, don't you? It wouldn't go far to fit you out!" He nodded at Adelle's rich dress. "It would hardly get you a dinner—wouldn't pay for the booze your husband will drink to-night."
Adelle winced at this shot, because it was only too evident to the servants and the men about the place that Archie drank too much at times. How could she complain of the workingman's drinking and wasting his money, which was the next argument she remembered from her neighbors' repertory, when her own husband drank more than was good for him and many of the men they knew socially did the same?
"It's no thanks to you rich people we get big pay either," the man continued. "You'd like mighty well to cut it down to nothing if you could get your work done."
That was perfectly true. All their crowd at Bellevue were perpetually complaining of the high wages they had to pay. They gave it as an excuse for all sorts of petty meanness. Adelle felt that Major Pound would have the suitable reply to the mason's argument, but she could not remember it.
"Five dollars a day for a day's hard work ain't so much either, when you think how many days in the year there's nothing doing for one reason or another. Last year I only had four months' work all told on account of the strikes."
"Yes," Adelle joined in eagerly, feeling that this ground was familiar and safe, "but the strikes were your own fault, weren't they? You didn't have to strike?"
For reply the mason looked wearily at her, and rising from his seat on the doorstep with a gesture remarked,—