“I'm not needed there, Robbie. You're making your own crop of revolutionists. Class arrogance carries its own seeds of destruction.”
“Listen, Uncle Jesse, what do you expect to accomplish by this? You know you can't convert my father. Do you just want to hurt each other?”
Yes, that was it. The two stags had their horns locked, and each wanted to butt the other, drive him back, beat him to the earth, mash him into it; each would rather die than give an inch. It was an old, old grudge; they had fought like this when they had first met, more than twenty years ago. Lanny hadn't been there, Lanny hadn't been anywhere then, but his mother had told him about it. Now it had got started again; the two stags couldn't get their horns apart, and it might mean the death of one or both!
“You and your gutter-rats imagining you can run industry!” snarled Robbie.
“If you're so sure we can't, why are you afraid to see us try? Why don't you call off your mercenaries that are fighting us on twenty-six fronts?”
“Why don't you call off your hellions that are spreading treason and hate in every nation?”
“Listen, Uncle Jesse! You promised Robbie you'd let me alone, but you're not doing it.”
“They don't let anybody alone,” sneered the father. “They don't keep any promises. We're the bourgeoisie, and we have no rights! We're parasites, and all we're fit for is to be 'liquidated'!”
“If you put yourself in front of a railroad train, it's suicide, not murder,” said the painter, with his twisted smile. He was keeping his temper, which only made Robbie madder.
Said he, addressing his son: “Our business is to clear the track and let a bunch of gangsters drive the train into a ditch. History won't be able to count the number they have slaughtered.”