is as good as the young queen's head on a
twenty-shilling piece. I mean the laws that secure the accumulation of
capital, by which means the real producers become mere hirelings, and
really are little better than slaves."

"But surely without capital we should all of us be little better than
slaves?"

"I am not against capital," replied Enoch. "What I am against is
capitalists."

"But if we get rid of capitalists we shall soon get rid of capital."

"No, no," said Enoch, with his broad accent, shaking his head, and with
a laughing eye. "Master Thornberry has been telling you that. He is the
most inveterate capitalist of the whole lot; and I always say, though
they keep aloof from him at present, they will be all sticking to his
skirts before long. Master Thornberry is against the capitalists in
land; but there are other capitalists nearer home, and I know more about
them. I was reading a book the other day about King Charles--Charles the
First, whose head they cut off--I am very liking to that time, and read
a good deal about it; and there was Lord Falkland, a great gentleman in
those days, and he said, when Archbishop Laud was trying on some of his
priestly tricks, that, 'if he were to have a pope, he would rather the
pope were at Rome than at Lambeth.' So I sometimes think, if we are to
be ruled by capitalists, I would sooner, perhaps, be ruled by gentlemen
of estate, who have been long among us, than by persons who build big
mills, who come from God knows where, and, when they have worked their
millions out of our flesh and bone, go God knows where. But perhaps we
shall get rid of them all some day--landlords and mill-lords."

"And whom will you substitute for them?"

"The producers," said Enoch, with a glance half savage, half triumphant.

"What can workmen do without capital?"

"Why, they make the capital," said Enoch; "and if they make the capital,
is it not strange that they should not be able to contrive some means
to keep the capital? Why, Job was saying the other day that there was
nothing like a principle to work upon. It would carry all before it. So
say I. And I have a principle too, though it is not Master Thornberry's.
But it will carry all before it, though it may not be in my time. But I
am not so sure of that."

"And what is it?" asked Endymion.

"CO-OPERATION."

CHAPTER LXIV

This strangely-revived acquaintance with Job Thornberry was not an
unfruitful incident in the life of Endymi