"I have a right to be. I know what I'm talking about."
"Then suppose I should use the power you credit me with in winning over Mr. Farrar and Miss Tracy to the cause. I think they're more than half converted now."
"We don't want them. They're too closely allied to the capitalistic class. We can't afford to have that kind of people with us. The workingmen look on them with suspicion; they have no confidence in them. As for the preacher, he's putting out a big bluff, but he doesn't mean it, and he couldn't accomplish anything if he did. He's wincing now under the screws they're putting on him."
"You have a grievance against the preacher. You haven't got over the drubbing he gave you at Carpenter's Hall. It hurts a little yet, doesn't it, Steve?" She looked at him with mischievous eyes, and a smile shadowing her perfect lips.
"Nonsense, Mary! He didn't get the best of me. Haven't I told you?"
"The crowd seemed to think he did."
"Oh, the crowd! They'll shout for anybody who can tickle their ears with fine phrases. It's the easiest thing in the world to carry a mob of these ignorant, flat-headed day-laborers off their feet."
"How about the 'wisdom of the proletariat'?"
"The 'wisdom of the proletariat' be damned!"
He reddened and laughed a little as he thus passed condemnation on one of his own favorite phrases.
"Well," she said, the smile still playing about her mouth, "what would you say to my converting Barry Malleson?"
"Oh, he's anybody's fool. Do what you like with him. You've got him pulverized already. I'd crack his skull now, out of pure jealousy, if he had brains enough in it to rattle."
"Don't you think he'd make a good socialist?"
