He spoke with fine enthusiasm, his face lit up, his eyes bright. The girl was almost carried away, until the other Voice began coldly and judicially:

'Nothing is so good for man as to be ruled and kept in discipline, service, and subjection. It is a foolish and a mischievous dream which supposes all men eager for advance. The ma.s.s of mankind asks for no advancement. It loves nothing and desires nothing but the gratification of the animal. Give it plenty of animalism and it is satisfied. That condition of society which keeps the ma.s.s down and provides for the rise of the ambitious few is the only condition which is reasonable and stable. Base your social order on the inertness of the ma.s.s. Make the workman do a good day's work: pay him enough, so that he shall have some of the comforts he desires: educate the clever boy and make him foreman, headman, manager, or artist, journalist, dramatist, novelist. Give him the taste for wealth. Let him have some. Then he, too, will be ready to fight if necessary in the army of order.'

While the other Voice was speaking, there came slouching around the corner into the street where he held the fifth--perhaps the tenth part of a room, a really excellent specimen of the common or London thief, the habitual criminal. He was a young man--the habitual criminal is generally young, because in middle and elderly life he is doing long sentences--he had a furtive look, such as that with which the jackal sallies forth on nocturnal adventures: he had a short slight figure, a stooping and slouching gait, and narrow shoulders. His eyes were bright, but too close together: his mouth was too large and his jowl too heavy: his face was pale, his hair was still short, though growing rapidly: his hands were pendulous: his round hat was too big for his little head: he wore a long loose overcoat. His face, his figure, his look proclaimed aloud what he was.

He stopped at the corner and looked at the little crowd. Everybody, for different reasons, is attracted by a crowd. Professionals sometimes find in crowds golden opportunities. This crowd, however, was already dispersing. The speaker had stopped. Perhaps they had heard other and more fervid orators on the Socialist side. Perhaps they were not in the least interested in the subject. You see, it is very difficult to get the hand-to-mouth cla.s.s interested in anything except those two organs.

'This street,' said the Master, observing him with professional interest, 'is full--really full--of wealth for the observer. Here is a case now--an instructive though a common case.' The fellow was turning away disappointed, perhaps, at the melting of the crowd and any little hope he might have based upon their pockets. 'My friend'--he heard himself called, and looked round suspiciously--'you would like, perhaps, to earn a shilling honestly, for once.'

He turned slowly: at the sight of the coin held up before him, his sharp eyes darted right and left to see what chance there might be of a grab and a bolt. Apparently, he decided against this method of earning the shilling. 'What for?' he asked.

'By answering a few questions. Where were you born?'

'I dunno.'

'Where were you brought up? Here?--In this street? Very well. You went to school with the other children: you were taught certain subjects up to a certain standard. What trade were you taught?'

'I wasn't taught no trade.'

'Your father was, I believe, a thief?'--The lad nodded--'And your mother, too?'--He nodded again, and grinned.--'And you yourself and your brothers and sisters are all in the same line, I suppose?'--He nodded and grinned again.--'Here is your shilling.' The fellow took it, and shambled away.

'Father--mother--the whole family, live by stealing. Where there is no Property there can be no theft. In our world, such a creature would be impossible. He could not be born: such parents as his could not exist with us: he could not be developed: there would be no surroundings that would make such a development possible. He would be what, I believe, men of science call a Sport: he would be a deformity. We should put him in a hospital and keep him there until he died.'

'In that world,' said the other Voice, 'there would be deformities of even a worse kind than this--the deformities of hypocrisy and shams. By a thousand shifts and lies and dishonesties the work of the world would be shifted on the shoulders of the weak. The strong man has always used his strength to make the weak man work for him, and he always will. The destruction of Property would be followed by the birth of Property on the very self-same day. There is the power of creation--of invention--which is also a kind of Property. Laws cannot destroy that power. Laws cannot make men industrious. Laws cannot make the strong man work for the weak. Laws cannot prevent the clever man from taking advantage of the stupid man. When all the failures--all the deformities--have been killed off, the able man will still prey upon the dull-witted. Better let the poor wretch live out his miserable life, driven from prison to prison, an example for all the world to see.'

It was at this point that Elsie discovered the loss of her purse. Her pocket had been picked by one of the intelligent listeners in the crowd.

She cried out on finding what had happened, in the unphilosophic surprise and indignation with which this quite common accident is always received.

'Child,' said the Master, 'when there is no longer any Property, money will vanish: there will be no purses; even the pocket will disappear, because there will no longer be any use for a pocket.--Did the purse contain much? Suppose you had nothing to lose and nothing to gain. Think of the lightness of heart, the sunshine on all faces, which would follow. I fear you are rich, child. I have observed little signs about you which denote riches. Your gloves are neat and good; your dress seems costly. Better far if you had nothing.'

'Master, if I were like that girl on the other side, would you like me better? Could I be more useful to the cause if I dressed like her?'

The girl was of the common type--they really do seem, at first, all alike--who had on an ulster and a hat with a feather and broken boots.

'If I were like her,' Elsie went on, 'I should be ignorant--and obliged to give the whole day to work, so that I should be useless to you--and my manners would be rough and my language coa.r.s.e. It is because I am not poor that I am what I am. The day for poverty is not come yet, dear Master.'

'In the future, dear child, there shall be no poverty and no riches. To have nothing will be the common lot. To have all will be the common inheritance. Oh! there will be differences: men shall be as unlike then as now: we shall not all desire the same things. You and such as you will desire Art of every kind. You shall have what you desire. In our world, as in this, like will to like. You shall have the use for yourselves of pictures, of musical instruments, of everything that you want. The rest of the world will not want these things. If they do, more can be made. You shall have dainty food--the rest of the world will always like coa.r.s.e and common fare. Think not that we shall level up or level down. All will be left to rise or to sink. Only they shall not starve, they shall not thieve, they shall not be sweated. Oh! I know they paint our society as attempts to make all equal. And they think that we expect men no longer to desire the good things in the world.

They will desire them--they will hunger after them--but there will be enough for all. The man who is contented with a dinner of herbs may go to a Carthusian convent, which is his place, for we shall have no place for him in a world which recognises all good gifts and a.s.signs to every man his share.'

Then spoke the other Voice, but sadly: 'Dreams! Dreams! There are not enough of the good things to go round--good things would become less instead of more. Without the spur there is no work. Without the desire of creating Property, all that is worth anything in life will perish--all but the things that are lowest and the meanest and the commonest. Men will not work unless they must. By necessity alone can the finest work be ordered and executed. As men have been, so will men always be. The thing that hath been, that shall be again.'

'You have learned some of the lessons of Poverty Lane, Scholar,' said the Master.--'Let us now go home.'

CHAPTER XXVII

'I KNOW THE MAN'

'Another evening of mystery, Elsie?' said Athelstan.

'Yes. Another, and perhaps another. But we are getting to an end. I shall be able to tell you all to-day or to-morrow. The thing is becoming too great for me alone.'

'You shall tell us when you please. Meantime, nothing new has been found out, I believe. Checkley still glares, George tells me. But the opinion of the clerks seems on the whole more favourable, he believes, than it was. Of that, however, he is not perhaps a good judge.'

'They shall all be turned out,' cried Elsie. 'How dare they so much as to discuss----'

'My sister, it is a very remarkable thing, and a thing little understood, but it is a true thing. People, people--clerks and _le Service_ generally--are distinctly a branch of the great human tribe.

They are anthropoid. Therefore, they are curious and prying and suspicious. They have our own faults, my dear.'

All day Elsie felt drawn as with ropes to Mr. Dering's office. Was it possible that after that long evening among the lessons of Poverty Lane he should remember nothing? How was she to get at him--how was she to make him understand or believe what he had done? Could she make the sane man remember the actions and words of the insane man? Could she make the insane man do something which would absolutely identify him with the sane man? She could always array her witnesses: but she wanted more: she wanted to bring Mr. Dering himself to understand that he was Mr. Edmund Gray.

She made an excuse for calling upon him. It was in the afternoon, about four, that she called. She found him looking aged, his face lined, his cheek pale, his eyes anxious.

'This business worries me,' he said. 'Day and night it is with me. I am persecuted and haunted with this Edmund Gray. His tracts are put into my pockets; his papers into my safe: he laughs at me: he defies me to find him. And they do nothing. They only accuse each other. They find nothing.'

'Patience,' said Elsie softly. 'Only a few days--a day or two--then--with your help--we will unravel all this trouble. You shall lose nothing.'

'Shall I escape this mocking devil--this Edmund Gray?'

'I cannot promise. Perhaps.--Now, my dear guardian, I am to be married next Wednesday. I want you to be present at my wedding.'

'Why not?'

'Because things have been said about George: and because your presence will effectually prove that you do not believe them.'

'Oh! Believe them? I believe nothing. It is, however, my experience that there is no act, however base, that any man may not be tempted to do.'

'Happily, it is my experience,' said the girl of twenty-one, 'that there is no act of baseness, however small, that certain men could possibly commit. You will come to my wedding, then. Athelstan will give me away.'

'Athelstan? Yes; I remember. We found those notes, didn't we? I wonder who put them into the safe? Athelstan! Yes. He has been living in low company, I heard--Camberwell.--Rags and tatters.'

'Oh!' Elsie stamped impatiently. 'You will believe anything--anything, and you a lawyer! Athelstan is in the service of a great American journal.--Rags and tatters!'

'American? Oh! yes.' Mr. Dering sat up and looked interested. 'Why, of course. How could I forget it? Had it been yesterday evening, I should have forgot. But it is four years ago. He wrote to me from somewhere in America. Where was it? I've got the letter. It is in the safe. Bring me the bottom right-hand drawer. It is there, I know.' He took the drawer which Elsie brought him, and turned over the papers. 'Here it is among the papers of that forgery. Here is the letter.' He gave it to Elsie.

'Read it. He writes from America, you see. He was in the States four years ago--and--and----What is it?'

'Oh!' cried Elsie, suddenly springing from her chair--'Oh! Do you know what you have given me? Oh! do you know what you have told me? It is the secret--the secret--of my fortune. Oh! Athelstan gave it to me--Athelstan--my brother!'

Mr. Dering took the letter from her and glanced at the contents. 'I ought not to have shown you the letter,' he said. 'I have violated confidence. I forgot. I was thinking of the trouble--I forgot. I forget everything now--the things of yesterday as well as the things of to-day.

Yes; it is true, child: your little fortune came to you from your brother. But it was a secret that he alone had the right to reveal.'

'And now I know it-- I know it. Oh! what shall I say to him?' The tears came in her eyes. 'He gave me all he had--all he had--because--oh! for such a simple thing--because I would not believe him to be a villain.

Oh! my brother--my poor brother! He went back into poverty again. He gave me all because--oh! for such a little thing!--Mr. Dering!' She turned almost fiercely upon him. 'After such a letter, _could_ you believe that man to be a villain? Could you? Tell me! After such a deed and such a letter!'

'I believe nothing. My experience, however, tells me that any man, whoever he is, may be led to commit----'