Shure, ye're a janyus, yer Honor; no doubt av that at all, at all;
but----"

"Go on!" I said.

"I was jist switherin', yer Honor, what a wontherful thing ut is that
a man kin always hev worruk whin he invints ut!"

"Well, that's worth knowing," I said disappointedly. "Did you learn
anything else?"

"Well, it takes to do that thrick what most av us hevn't got; ut takes
brains, sor--ut takes brains!"

"Why don't you have brains, then?"

He looked dumbly at me, and hung his head.

"I dunno--I dunno," he muttered.

The men at the Bismarck needed no urging to attend the meeting the
following Sunday. Grogan had told his story; they were anxious to hear
mine. The room was crowded to suffocation. They stood on the benches;
they sat on the window-sills--everywhere; from all directions, the
eyes of that dull, heavy human mass were penetrating me.

I was frank and explicit in my analysis of the experiment. I had no
idea that Grogan would speak, but he did, and his speech was pointed.

"Whin ye talk religion, mister," he said, "ye're O.K.; but whin ye say
we're lazy hobos, all av us, ye're spakin' round the rim av yer hat!"

Grogan made the crowd laugh when he told them how I had been turned
away from shops and factories.

"Some av us poor divils hev done that same," he said, "fur weeks--until,
begobs, we wisht we wur dead or hung or anythin'!"

I was about to close the meeting, when an old man known as "Judge"
shuffled out to the front and asked permission to speak. He was a man
of education whom I had not hitherto been able to engage in
conversation.

The Judge administered a scathing rebuke, closing with a touch of
humor, which was lost on the crowd. I stood there in the midst of a
handful of friends, who mingled their pity with indignation. I took
what belonged to me, and thanked the old man. The experiment exploded
some of my theories and sent me to the school of facts.

_Graf von "Habenichts"_

Nothing in the life of the bunk-house was more noticeable than the way
men of intelligence grouped themselves together. Besides the Judge,
there was an ex-Parliamentarian, an ex-lawyer, an ex-soldier of
Victoria, and a German Graf. I named them the "Ex-Club." Every morning
they separated as though forever. Every night they returned, and
looked at one another in surprise.

At election-time both political parties had access to the register,
and every lodger was the recipient of two letters. Between elections a
le