th uneasy little coughs.

"Yes," she went on, "I am a socialist and I am proud of it. The
whole world is slowly drifting toward socialism as the only remedy
for the actual intolerable conditions. It may not come in our
time, but it will come as surely as the sun will rise and set
tomorrow. Has not the flag of socialism waved recently from the
White House? Has not a President of the United States declared
that the State must eventually curb the great fortunes? What is
that but socialism?"

"True," retorted Ryder grimly, "and that little speech intended
for the benefit of the gallery will cost him the nomination at the
next Presidential election. We don't want in the White House a
President who stirs up class hatred. Our rich men have a right to
what is their own; that is guaranteed them by the Constitution."

"Is it their own?" interrupted Shirley.

Ryder ignored the insinuation and proceeded:

"What of our boasted free institutions if a man is to be
restricted in what he may and may not do? If I am clever enough to
accumulate millions who can stop me?"

"The people will stop you," said Shirley calmly. "It is only a
question of time. Their patience is about exhausted. Put your ear
to the ground and listen to the distant rumbling of the tempest
which, sooner or later, will be unchained in this land, provoked
by the iniquitous practices of organized capital. The people have
had enough of the extortions of the Trusts. One day they will rise
in their wrath and seize by the throat this knavish plutocracy
which, confident in the power of its wealth to procure legal
immunity and reckless of its danger, persists in robbing the
public daily. But retribution is at hand. The growing discontent
of the proletariat, the ever-increasing strikes and labour
disputes of all kinds, the clamour against the Railroads and the
Trusts, the evidence of collusion between both--all this is the
writing on the wall. The capitalistic system is doomed; socialism
will succeed it."

"What is socialism?" he demanded scornfully. "What will it give
the public that it has not got already?"

Shirley, who never neglected an opportunity to make a convert,
no matter how hardened he might be, picked up a little pamphlet
printed for propaganda purposes which she had that morning
received by mail.

"Here," she said, "is one of the best and clearest definitions of
socialism I have ever read:

"Socialism is common ownership of natural resources and pu