ard so
many fallacies uttered in one short hour. And besides, young man, I must
tell you that you have said nothing new. I learned all that at college
before you were born. Jean Jacques Rousseau enunciated your socialistic
theory nearly two centuries ago. A return to the soil, forsooth!
Reversion! Our biology teaches the absurdity of it. It has been
truly said that a little learning is a dangerous thing, and you have
exemplified it to-night with your madcap theories. Fallacy upon fallacy!
I was never so nauseated in my life with overplus of fallacy. That for
your immature generalizations and childish reasonings!"

He snapped his fingers contemptuously and proceeded to sit down. There
were lip-exclamations of approval on the part of the women, and hoarser
notes of confirmation came from the men. As for the dozen men who
were clamoring for the floor, half of them began speaking at once. The
confusion and babel was indescribable. Never had Mrs. Pertonwaithe's
spacious walls beheld such a spectacle. These, then, were the cool
captains of industry and lords of society, these snarling, growling
savages in evening clothes. Truly Ernest had shaken them when he
stretched out his hands for their moneybags, his hands that had
appeared in their eyes as the hands of the fifteen hundred thousand
revolutionists.

But Ernest never lost his head in a situation. Before Colonel Van
Gilbert had succeeded in sitting down, Ernest was on his feet and had
sprung forward.

"One at a time!" he roared at them.

The sound arose from his great lungs and dominated the human tempest. By
sheer compulsion of personality he commanded silence.

"One at a time," he repeated softly. "Let me answer Colonel Van Gilbert.
After that the rest of you can come at me--but one at a time, remember.
No mass-plays here. This is not a football field.

"As for you," he went on, turning toward Colonel Van Gilbert, "you have
replied to nothing I have said. You have merely made a few excited and
dogmatic assertions about my mental caliber. That may serve you in your
business, but you can't talk to me like that. I am not a workingman,
cap in hand, asking you to increase my wages or to protect me from the
machine at which I work. You cannot be dogmatic with truth when you deal
with me. Save that for dealing with your wage-slaves. They will not dare
reply to you because you hold their bread and butter, their lives, in
your hands.

"As for this return to nature that y