Stone. He took the saucepan off the flame,
and, distending his frail cheeks, blew. Then, while the steam mingled
with his frosty beard, he brought two cups from a cupboard, filled one of
them, and looked at Hilary.

"I should like you," he said, "to hear three or four pages I have just
completed; you may perhaps be able to suggest a word or two."

He placed the saucepan back on the stove, and grasped the cup he had
filled.

"I will drink my cocoa, and read them to you."

Going to the desk, he stood, blowing at the cup.

Hilary turned up the collar of his coat against the night wind which was
visiting the room, and glanced at the empty cup, for he was rather
hungry. He heard a curious sound: Mr. Stone was blowing his own tongue.
In his haste to read, he had drunk too soon and deeply of the cocoa.

"I have burnt my mouth," he said.

Hilary moved hastily towards him: "Badly? Try cold milk, sir."

Mr. Stone lifted the cup.

"There is none," he said, and drank again.

'What would I not give,' thought Hilary, 'to have his singleness of
heart!'

There was the sharp sound of a cup set down. Then, out of a rustling of
papers, a sort of droning rose:

"'The Proletariat--with a cynicism natural to those who really are in
want, and even amongst their leaders only veiled when these attained a
certain position in the public eye--desired indeed the wealth and leisure
of their richer neighbours, but in their long night of struggle with
existence they had only found the energy to formulate their pressing
needs from day to day. They were a heaving, surging sea of creatures,
slowly, without consciousness or real guidance, rising in long tidal
movements to set the limits of the shore a little farther back, and cast
afresh the form of social life; and on its pea-green bosom '" Mr. Stone
paused. "She has copied it wrong," he said; "the word is 'seagreen.'
'And on its sea-green bosom sailed a fleet of silver cockle-shells,
wafted by the breath of those not in themselves driven by the wind of
need. The voyage of these silver cockle-shells, all heading across each
other's bows, was, in fact, the advanced movement of that time. In the
stern of each of these little craft, blowing at the sails, was seated a
by-product of the accepted system. These by-products we should now
examine."

Mr. Stone paused, and looked into his cup. There were some grounds in
it. He drank them, and went on:

"'The fratricidal principle of