'Do many people call upon him?'
'Does he keep clerks? Does he carry on an extensive correspondence?'
'I have never heard the postman knock at his door.'
'Has he a son or a brother or a partner or anything?'
'I don't know. He may have these hindrances, but they are not apparent.'
'What is his occupation or trade?'
'He is a Socialist. He is athirst for the destruction of property. Meantime, I believe, he lives on his own. Perhaps his will be spared to the last. He is an old gentleman of pleasant manners and of benevolent aspect. The old women beg of him; the children ask him the time; the people who have lost their way apply to him. He dreams all the time: he lives in a world impossible. Oh! quite impossible. Why, in a world all Socialist, I myself should be impossible. They wouldn't have me. My old friend told me the other day that I should not be tolerated. They would kill me. All because I do no work—or next to none.'
George looked at Athelstan. 'We are farther off than ever,' he said.
'Mr. Edmund Gray believes that the Kingdom of Heaven is a kind of hive where everybody has got to work with enormous zeal, and where nobody owns anything. Also he thinks that it is close at hand, which makes him a very happy old gentleman.'