"If there is one matter about which I am more particular than another," said Sir Leopold Kershaw, with much emphasis, "it is that due recognition should be given to the absolute equality of man with his fellow-man. Show me my fellow-man"—Sir Leopold was very defiant at this point—"and I will grasp him by the hand and hail him as 'Brother.' And I defy anyone to prevent me!"
Sir Leopold Kershaw—big, portly, and somewhat brow-beating—stood in front of the blazing fire in his comfortable dining-room and addressed these remarks to his son. Some eight or nine winters only having passed over the head of that young gentleman, it must be presumed that his father addressed him for lack of a better audience. Master Teddy Kershaw, for his part, gazed solemnly up at his father from the depths of an easy chair, and took in the ponderous phrases like gospel.
"Then I suppose, papa, that Wilkins is my brother?" said the child, slowly, after some moments of deep thought. Wilkins, it should be said, was the butler.
Sir Leopold Kershaw coughed. "My child, there are certain distinctions absolutely necessary to be observed. Wilkins, although nominally your brother, has already, I am given to understand, an abnormally large following of relatives, and needs no addition to them. When I touched upon the principles of brotherhood just now, I did not speak so much of distinct individuals as of man in the abstract. Wilkins, I trust, knows his place"—Sir Leopold frowned a little, and seemed to suggest that, if Wilkins did not, there were those capable of teaching him—"and is, in a sense, provided for. In an ideal condition of society men would share and share alike: one man would not be permitted to partake of roast pheasant while his less fortunate fellow gnawed the humble trotter; feather beds would be unknown among the classes while the masses continued to court repose upon doorsteps."
Now, the mind of a child is a peculiar thing—having a tendency, by some strange gift of the gods, to retain the true and to cast aside the worthless. So it happened that the mind of little Teddy Kershaw, by some subtle process, eliminated from his father's speech all that was mere verbiage, and began to construct for itself a glorious fabric called Universal Brotherhood. Setting aside those who were well fed and prosperous, the child came to see in every houseless wanderer of the streets—in every toil-worn, white-faced man or woman—some being who had a right, not only to his pity, but to every luxury which he himself enjoyed. And the idea grew and grew until it filled his childish mind, and until—like a small and gallant Crusader—he began to feel that he must do something, more than mere thoughts and words, to carry the thing into effect. He began for the first time to notice, with a sort of pained wonder, that little children, smaller and weaker even than himself, shivered in the streets while he rolled along in his father's carriage; that women carried heavy baskets, while his own mother would scarce put her delicate feet to the ground and was buried in furs and wraps. The incongruity of it came full upon him; and he determined at last, in an inspired moment, to do something to remedy the matter.