"A share in a business," he said, softly, "carries uncomfortable responsibilities. You can't go to yourself, for instance, and say: 'Give me more wages—more than the traffic will bear; then you sweat about it in your office, but don't bother me in my cottage.'"
"You acknowledge it!" George cried.
Allen's face at last became a trifle animated.
"Why not—to you? Everybody's out to get it—the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. The capitalist most of all. Why not the man that turns the wheels?"
George whistled.
"You'd crush essential industries off the face of the earth! You'd go back to the stone age!"
"Not," Allen answered, slowly, "as long as the profits of the past can be got out of somebody's pockets."
"You'd grab capital!"
"Like a flash; and what are you going to do about it?"
"I'll tell you what I am going to do," George answered, "and I fancy a lot of others will follow my example. I am going to get rid of those stocks if I have to throw them out of the window, then you'll have no gun to hold at my head."