Fulkerson braced his knees against his desk, and pushed himself back, but kept his balance to the eye by canting his hat sharply forward. "There's an old cock over there at the widow's that's written a book to prove that slavery was and is the only solution of the labor problem. He's a Southerner."
"I should imagine," March assented.
"He's got it on the brain that if the South could have been let alone by the commercial spirit and the pseudophilanthropy of the North, it would have worked out slavery into a perfectly ideal condition for the laborer, in which he would have been insured against want, and protected in all his personal rights by the state. He read the introduction to me last night. I didn't catch on to all the points—his daughter's an awfully pretty girl, and I was carrying that fact in my mind all the time, too, you know—but that's about the gist of it."
"Seems to regard it as a lost opportunity?" said March.
"Exactly! What a mighty catchy title, Neigh? Look well on the title-page."
"Well written?"
"I reckon so; I don't know. The Colonel read it mighty eloquently."
"It mightn't be such bad business," said March, in a muse. "Could you get me a sight of it without committing yourself?"
"If the Colonel hasn't sent it off to another publisher this morning. He just got it back with thanks yesterday. He likes to keep it travelling."
"Well, try it. I've a notion it might be a curious thing."