ats of labor who are
within ten shillings a week of being worse off. However, there is some
excuse for my father. Once, at an election riot, I got into a free
fight. I am a peaceful man, but as I had either to fight or be knocked
down and trampled upon, I exchanged blows with men who were perhaps as
peacefully disposed as I. My father, launched into a free competition
(free in the sense that the fight is free: that is, lawless)--my father
had to choose between being a slave himself and enslaving others.
He chose the latter, and as he was applauded and made much of for
succeeding, who dare blame him? Not I. Besides, he did something to
destroy the anarchy that enabled him to plunder society with impunity.
He furnished me, its enemy, with the powerful weapon of a large fortune.
Thus our system of organizing industry sometimes hatches the eggs from
which its destroyers break. Does Lady Brandon wear much lace?"

"I--No; that is--How the deuce do I know, Trefusis? What an
extraordinary question!"

"This is a photograph of a lace school. It was a filthy room, twelve
feet square. It was paved with brick, and the children were not allowed
to wear their boots, lest the lace should get muddy. However, as
there were twenty of them working there for fifteen hours a day--all
girls--they did not suffer much from cold. They were pretty tightly
packed--may be still, for aught I know. They brought three or four
shillings a week sometimes to their fond parents; and they were very
quick-fingered little creatures, and stuck intensely to their work, as
the overseer always hit them when they looked up or--"

"Trefusis," said Sir Charles, turning away from the table, "I beg your
pardon, but I have no appetite for horrors. You really must not ask me
to go through your collection. It is no doubt very interesting, but I
can't stand it. Have you nothing pleasant to entertain me with?"

"Pooh! you are squeamish. However, as you are a novice, let us put off
the rest until you are seasoned. The pictures are not all horrible. Each
book refers to a different country. That one contains illustrations of
modern civilization in Germany, for instance. That one is France; that,
British India. Here you have the United States of America, home of
liberty, theatre of manhood suffrage, kingless and lordless land of
Protection, Republicanism, and the realized Radical Programme, where all
the black chattel slaves were turned into wage-slaves (like my father's