The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him Part 88

"Then I shan't say good-bye."

"I cannot tell you," said Peter, quietly; "please say good-bye."

"No."

That refusal caused Peter gloom all the way to the station. But if Leonore could have looked into the future she would have seen in her refusal the bitterest sorrow she had ever known.

CHAPTER LV.

OATHS.

As soon as Peter was on the express he went into the smoking cabin of the sleeping-car, and lighting a cigar, took out a letter and read it over again. While he was still reading it, a voice exclaimed:

"Good! Here's Peter. So you are in it too?" Ogden continued, as Ray and he took seats by Peter.

"I always did despise Anarchists and Nihilists," sighed Ray, "since I was trapped into reading some of those maudlin Russian novels, with their eighth-century ideas grafted on nineteenth-century conditions.

Baby brains stimulated with whisky."

Ogden turned to Peter. "How serious is it likely to be, Colonel?"

"I haven't any idea," replied Peter, "The staff is of the opposite party now, and I only have a formal notification to hold my regiment in readiness. If it's nothing but this Socialist and Anarchist talk, there is no real danger in it."

"Why not?"

"This country can never be in danger from discontent with our government, for it's what the majority want it to be, or if not, it is made so at the next election. That is the beauty of a Democracy. The majority always supports the government. We fight our revolutions with ballots, not with bullets."

"Yet Most says that blood must be shed."

"I suppose," said Peter, "that he has just reached the stage of intelligence which doctors had attained when they bled people to make them strong."

"What can you do with such a fellow's talk? You can't argue with him,"

said Ogden.

"Talk!" muttered Ray, "Don't dignify it with that word. Gibberish!"

"No?" said Peter, "It's too earnest to deserve that name. The man can't express himself, but way down underneath all the absurd talk of 'natural monopolies,' and of 'the oppression of the money-power,' there lies a germ of truth, without which none of their theories would have a corporal's guard of honest believers. We have been working towards that truth in an unsystematic way for centuries, but we are a long way from it, and till we solve how to realize it, we shall have ineffectual discontent."

"But that makes the whole thing only the more arrant nonsense," grumbled Ray. "It's foolish enough in all conscience sake, if they had a chance of success, but when they haven't any, why the deuce do they want to drag us poor beggars back from Newport?"

"Why did Rome insist on burning while Nero fiddled?" queried Peter smiling. "We should hear nothing of socialism and anarchy if Newport and the like had no existence."

"I believe at heart you're a Socialist yourself," cried Ray.

"No danger," laughed Ogden; "his bank account is too large. No man with Peter's money is ever a Socialist"

"You forget," said Ray, "that Peter is always an exception to the rule."

"No," said Peter. "I disagree with Socialists entirely both in aims and methods, but I sympathize with them, for I see the fearful problems which they think their theories will solve, and though I know how mistaken they are, I cannot blame them, when I see how seriously and honestly they believe in, and how unselfishly they work for, their ideas. Don't blame the Socialists, for they are quite as conscientious as were the Abolitionists. Blame it to the lack of scientific education, which leaves these people to believe that theories containing a half truth are so wholly true that they mean the regeneration and salvation of society."

"I suppose you are right," sighed Ray, "for you've thought of it, and I haven't. I don't want to, either. I thank the Lord I'm not as serious as you, Graveyard. But if you want to air your theory, I'll lend you my ears, for friendship's sake. I don't promise to remember."

Peter puffed his cigar for a moment "I sometimes conclude," he said, "that the people who are most in need of education, are the college-bred men. They seem to think they've done all the work and study of their life in their four years, and so can dissipate mentally ever after." But Peter smiled as he said this and continued, more seriously: "Society and personal freedom are only possible in conjunction, when law or public opinion interferes to the degree of repressing all individual acts that interfere with the freedom of others; thus securing the greatest individual freedom to all. So far as physical force is concerned, we have pretty well realized this condition. Because a man is strong he can no longer take advantage of the weak. But strength is not limited to muscle. To protect the weak mind from the strong mind is an equal duty, and a far more difficult task. So far we have only partially succeeded.

In this difficulty lies the whole problem. Socialism, so far as it attempts to repress individualism, and reduce mankind to an evenness opposed to all natural laws, is suicidal of the best in favor of mediocrity. But so far as it attempts to protect that mediocrity and weakness from the superior minds of the best, it is only in line with the laws which protect us from murder and robbery. You can't expect men of the Most variety, however, to draw such distinctions."

"I do wish they would settle it, without troubling me," groaned Ray.

"Lispenard's right. A man's a fool who votes, or serves on a jury, or joins a regiment. What's the good of being a good citizen, when the other fellow won't be? I'm sick of being good for nothing."

"Have you just discovered that?" laughed Ogden. "You're progressing."

"No," said Ray, "I am good for one thing. Like a good many other men I furnish the raw material on which the dearest of women may lavish her affection. Heigh-ho! I wish I was before the fire with her now. It's rather rough to have visits to one's wife cut short in this way."

Peter rose. "I am going to get some sleep, for we don't know what's before us, and may not have much after to-night. But, Ray, there's a harder thing than leaving one's wife at such a time."

"What's that, Peter?" asked Ray, looking at Peter with surprise.

"To know that there is no one to whom your going or return really matters." Peter pa.s.sed out of the cabin.

"By George!" said Ray, "if it wasn't Peter, I'd have sworn there was salt water in his eyes."

"Anneke has always insisted that he was lonely. I wonder if she's right?" Ogden queried.

"If he is, why the deuce does he get off in those solitary quarters of his?"

"Ray," said Ogden, "I have a sovereign contempt for a man who answers one question with another."

Peter reached the city at six the next morning, and, despite the hour, began his work at once. He made a number of calls in the district, holding whispered dialogues with men; who, as soon as Peter was gone, hurried about and held similar conversations with other men; who promptly went and did the same to still others. While they were doing this, Peter drove uptown, and went into d.i.c.kel's riding academy. As he pa.s.sed through the office, a man came out.

"Ah, Mr. Stirling. Good-morning."

"Good-morning, Mr. Byrnes," said Peter. "How serious is it likely to be?"

"We can't say yet. But the force has all it can do now to handle the Anarchists and unemployed, and if this strike takes place we shall need you."

Peter pa.s.sed into another room where were eight men.

"Good-morning, Colonel," said one. "You are prompt."

"What is the trouble?"

"The Central has decided to make a general reduction. They put it in force at noon to-day, and are so certain that the men will go out, that they've six hundred new hands ready somewhere to put right in."

"Byrnes tells me he has all he can do."

"Yes. We've obtained the governor's consent to embody eight regiments.

It isn't only the strike that's serious, but this parade of the unemployed to-morrow, and the meeting which the Anarchists have called in the City Hall. Byrnes reports a very ugly feeling, and buying of arms."