e socialism," Mr. Morse replied, while
Ruth gazed anxiously from one to the other, and Mrs. Morse beamed happily
at the opportunity afforded of rousing her liege lord's antagonism.

"Because I say Republicans are stupid, and hold that liberty, equality,
and fraternity are exploded bubbles, does not make me a socialist,"
Martin said with a smile. "Because I question Jefferson and the
unscientific Frenchmen who informed his mind, does not make me a
socialist. Believe me, Mr. Morse, you are far nearer socialism than I
who am its avowed enemy."

"Now you please to be facetious," was all the other could say.

"Not at all. I speak in all seriousness. You still believe in equality,
and yet you do the work of the corporations, and the corporations, from
day to day, are busily engaged in burying equality. And you call me a
socialist because I deny equality, because I affirm just what you live up
to. The Republicans are foes to equality, though most of them fight the
battle against equality with the very word itself the slogan on their
lips. In the name of equality they destroy equality. That was why I
called them stupid. As for myself, I am an individualist. I believe the
race is to the swift, the battle to the strong. Such is the lesson I
have learned from biology, or at least think I have learned. As I said,
I am an individualist, and individualism is the hereditary and eternal
foe of socialism."

"But you frequent socialist meetings," Mr. Morse challenged.

"Certainly, just as spies frequent hostile camps. How else are you to
learn about the enemy? Besides, I enjoy myself at their meetings. They
are good fighters, and, right or wrong, they have read the books. Any
one of them knows far more about sociology and all the other ologies than
the average captain of industry. Yes, I have been to half a dozen of
their meetings, but that doesn't make me a socialist any more than
hearing Charley Hapgood orate made me a Republican."

"I can't help it," Mr. Morse said feebly, "but I still believe you
incline that way."

Bless me, Martin thought to himself, he doesn't know what I was talking
about. He hasn't understood a word of it. What did he do with his
education, anyway?

Thus, in his development, Martin found himself face to face with economic
morality, or the morality of class; and soon it became to him a grisly
monster. Personally, he was an intellectual moralist, and more offending
to him than platitud