There was a brief silence. Sheard was on his hobbyhorse, and there were few there disposed to follow him. The views of the Gleaner are not everybody's money.
"What sort of gas are you handing us out?" asked Rohscheimer. "Those lazy scamps don't deserve any comfort; they never worked to get it! The people here are moneyed people."
"Just so!" interrupted Sheard, taking up the challenge with true Gleaner ardour. "Moneyed people! That's the whole distinction in two words!"
"Well, then—what about it?"
"This—that if every guest now in the hotel would write a cheque for an amount representing 1 per cent. of his weekly income, every man, woman, and child under the arch yonder would be provided with board and lodging for the next six months!"
"Why do it?" demanded Rohscheimer, not unreasonably. "Why feed 'em up on idleness?"
"Their idleness may be compulsory," replied Sheard. "Few would employ a starving man while a well-nourished one was available."
"Cut the Socialist twaddle!" directed the other coarsely. "It gets on my nerves! You and your cheques! Who'd you make 'em payable to? Editor of the Gleaner."
"I would suggest," said Sir Richard Haredale, smiling, "to Séverac Bablon."
"To who?" inquired Rohscheimer, with greater interest than grammar.