other, dryly, "for he was a practical man. He would take pretty little
imitation lemons, such as are now being shipped into Russia, handy for
carrying in the pockets, and strong enough to blow a whole temple out of
sight."

Lucas waited until the company had stopped laughing over this; then
he began again: "But look at it from the point of view of practical
politics, comrade. Here is an historical figure whom all men reverence
and love, whom some regard as divine; and who was one of us--who lived
our life, and taught our doctrine. And now shall we leave him in the
hands of his enemies--shall we allow them to stifle and stultify his
example? We have his words, which no one can deny; and shall we not
quote them to the people, and prove to them what he was, and what he
taught, and what he did? No, no, a thousand times no!--we shall use his
authority to turn out the knaves and sluggards from his ministry, and we
shall yet rouse the people to action!--"

Lucas halted again; and the other stretched out his hand to a paper on
the table. "Here, comrade," he said, with a laugh, "here is a place for
you to begin. A bishop whose wife has just been robbed of fifty thousand
dollars' worth of diamonds! And a most unctuous and oily of bishops!
An eminent and scholarly bishop! A philanthropist and friend of labor
bishop--a Civic Federation decoy duck for the chloroforming of the
wage-working-man!"

To this little passage of arms the rest of the company sat as
spectators. But now Mr. Maynard, the editor, took occasion to remark,
somewhat naively, that he had always understood that Socialists had a
cut-and-dried program for the future of civilization; whereas here were
two active members of the party, who, from what he could make out, were
agreed about nothing at all. Would the two, for his enlightenment, try
to ascertain just what they had in common, and why they belonged to the
same party? This resulted, after much debating, in the formulating of
two carefully worded propositions: First, that a Socialist believes in
the common ownership and democratic management of the means of producing
the necessities of life; and, second, that a Socialist believes that
the means by which this is to be brought about is the class conscious
political organization of the wage-earners. Thus far they were at
one; but no farther. To Lucas, the religious zealot, the co-operative
commonwealth was the New Jerusalem, the kingdom of Heaven, which is
"withi