ulator and how frightened that person would have been had he known
how angry he had made him.

"He was a little smooth chap," he said, "with smooth hair an' smooth
clothes and a smooth voice. You could hardly tell it was hair, it was
that smooth. You'd nearly think somebody had painted it on his skull. He
couldn't make me out when I said I'd rather starve than let a halfpenny
of my money be used to make a mess of Glendalough, an' he talked about
the necessity of havin' a broad outlook on the world. I suppose he went
away an' told everybody that I was a reactionary an' a bad landlord. Oh,
I can hear him spoutin' away about me ... he got into parliament soon
after that, an' used to denounce landlords an' blether away about
progress. An' I daresay everybody that listens to him thinks I'm a
stupid fellow, standin' in the way of everything. I'm a landlord, an'
so, of course, I'm obsolete and tyrannical an' thick-headed, an' all
that, but I wouldn't treat one of my labourers the way your grandfather
treated his for the wide world. Mind you, he was a religious man ... I
don't mean that he pretended to be religious ... he really was
religious, after a fashion ... wouldn't have missed goin' to church or
sayin' his prayers night _an'_ mornin' for a mint of money ... an' yet
there didn't seem to him to be anything wrong in lettin' men an' women
make money for him in that ... that disgustin' way. I can't understand
that. I'm damned if I can!"

Something stirred uneasily in Henry's mind. He became acutely conscious
of the principal source of his father's income, and he remembered
things that had been said to him by Gilbert Farlow at Rumpell's. Gilbert
Farlow was his chief friend at Rumpell's, the English school to which he
had been sent after his experience at Armagh, and Gilbert called himself
an hereditary socialist because his father had been a socialist before
him. ("He was one of the first members of the Fabian Society," Gilbert
used to say proudly.) Gilbert had strong, almost violent, views on
Personal Responsibility for General Wrongs. He always referred to rich
people as "oligarchs," or "the rotters who live on rent and interest"
and declared that it was impossible for them to escape from the
responsibility for the social chaos by asserting that they,
individually, had kind hearts and had never been known to underpay or
overwork any one. Remembering Gilbert's views, Henry could not help
thinking that it was all very well fo