't understand
about science."

Parload rarely argued with that bluntness of opposition. I was so
used to entire possession of our talk that his brief contradiction
struck me like a blow. "Don't agree with me!" I repeated.

"No," said Parload

"But how?"

"I believe science is of more importance than socialism," he said.
"Socialism's a theory. Science--science is something more."

And that was really all he seemed to be able to say.

We embarked upon one of those queer arguments illiterate young men
used always to find so heating. Science or Socialism? It was, of
course, like arguing which is right, left handedness or a taste for
onions, it was altogether impossible opposition. But the range of
my rhetoric enabled me at last to exasperate Parload, and his mere
repudiation of my conclusions sufficed to exasperate me, and we
ended in the key of a positive quarrel. "Oh, very well!" said I.
"So long as I know where we are!"

I slammed his door as though I dynamited his house, and went raging
down the street, but I felt that he was already back at the window
worshiping his blessed line in the green, before I got round the
corner.

I had to walk for an hour or so, before I was cool enough to go
home.

And it was Parload who had first introduced me to socialism!

Recreant!

The most extraordinary things used to run through my head in those
days. I will confess that my mind ran persistently that evening upon
revolutions after the best French pattern, and I sat on a Committee
of Safety and tried backsliders. Parload was there, among the
prisoners, backsliderissimus, aware too late of the error of his
ways. His hands were tied behind his back ready for the shambles;
through the open door one heard the voice of justice, the rude
justice of the people. I was sorry, but I had to do my duty.

"If we punish those who would betray us to Kings," said I, with
a sorrowful deliberation, "how much the more must we punish those
who would give over the State to the pursuit of useless knowledge";
and so with a gloomy satisfaction sent him off to the guillotine.

"Ah, Parload! Parload! If only you'd listened to me earlier,
Parload. . . ."

None the less that quarrel made me extremely unhappy. Parload was
my only gossip, and it cost me much to keep away from him and think
evil of him with no one to listen to me, evening after evening.

That was a very miserable time for me, even before my last visit
to Checkshill. My long un