'One Edmund Gray, resident at 22 South Square, Gray's Inn.'
'No. 22? Oh! that is where Freddy Carstone lives. Do you know anything about the nommé Edmund Gray?'
'I have been in search of information about him. He is described by the landlord of the rooms and by his laundress as an elderly gentleman.'
'Elderly. Checkley is elderly.'
'Yes, I thought of Checkley, of course. But somehow the indications don't fit. My informants speak of a gentleman. Nobody at his kindliest and most benevolent mood could possibly call Checkley a gentleman.'
'The word gentleman,' said Athelstan, 'is elastic. It stretches with the employer or the consumer of it. It is like the word truth to a politician. It varies from man to man. You cannot lay down any definition of the word gentleman. Do you know nothing more about him?'
'A little. He has held this set of Chambers for nine years, and he pays his rent regularly before the day it falls due. Also I called upon him the other day when his laundress was at work and wrote a note to him at his table. The room is full of Socialist books and pamphlets. He is therefore, presumably, a Socialist leader.'
'I know all their leaders,' said Athelstan the Journalist.
'I've made the acquaintance of most for business purposes. I've had to read up the Socialist Literature and to make the acquaintance of their chiefs. There is no Edmund Gray among them. Stay—there is a Socialist letter in the Times of to-day—surely—— Waiter'—they were dining at the club where Athelstan was a temporary member—'let me have the Times of to-day. Yes, I thought so. Here is a letter from the Socialist point of view, signed by Edmund Gray—and—and yes—look here—it is most curious—with the same address—22 South Square—a long letter, in small print, and put in the supplement; but it's there. See; signed "Edmund Gray." What do you think of that, for impudence in a forger?'
George read the letter through carefully. It was a whole column long; and it was in advocacy of Socialism pure and simple. One was surprised that the editor had allowed it to appear. Probably he was influenced by the tone of it, which was generous, cheerful, and optimistic. There was not the slightest ring of bitterness about it. 'We who look,' it said, 'for the coming disappearance of Property, not by violence and revolution, but by a rapid process of decay and wasting away, regard the present position of the holders of Property with the greatest satisfaction. Everywhere there are encouraging signs. Money which formerly obtained five per cent. now yields no more than half that rate. Shares which were formerly paying ten, twelve, and twenty per cent. are now falling steadily. Companies started every day in the despairing hope of the old great gains, fail and are wound up. Land, which the old wars forced up to an extraordinary value, has now sunk so enormously that many landlords have lost three-fourths and even more of their income. All those enterprises which require the employment of many hands—as docks, railways, printing-houses, manufactories of all kinds—are rapidly falling into the condition of being able to pay no dividend at all, because the pay of the men and the maintenance of the plant absorb all. When that point is reached, the whole capital—the millions—embarked in these enterprises will be lost for ever. The stock cannot be sold because it produces nothing: it has vanished. In other words, sir, what I desire to point out to your readers is that while you are discussing or denouncing Socialism, the one condition which makes Socialism possible and necessary is actually coming upon the world—namely, the destruction of capital. Why have not men in all ages combined to work for themselves? Because capital has prevented them. When there is no capital left to employ them, to bully them, to make laws against their combinations, or to bribe them, they will then have to work with and for themselves or starve. The thing will be forced upon them. Work will be a necessity for everybody: there will be no more a privileged class: all who work will be paid at equal rates for their work: those who refuse to work will be suffered to starve.'