Only each time he tried to put
these very natural opinions in words, they kept sounding wrong and
tyrannical and narrow--qualities which Eddie knew he was entirely
without. In order to counteract this effect, he tried at first to
speak very temperately and calmly, but, unhappily, this only had the
effect of making him sound patronizing to Ben's ears.
In short, it was hardly to be expected that the discussion would be
amicable, and it was not. Each man began to be angry in his own way.
Eddie shouted a little, and Ben expressed himself with turns of phrase
quite needlessly insulting. Ben found Verriman's assumption that the
profits of capital were bound up with patriotism, family life, and
the Christian religion almost as irritating as Verriman found Ben's
assumption that the government of labor as a class would be entirely
without the faults that have always marked every form of class
government.
"And suppose you got socialism," said Eddie, at last, "suppose you did
divide everything up equally, don't you suppose that in a few years
the clever, strong, industrious men would have it all in their own
hands?"
"Very likely," said Ben, "but that would be quite a change from the
present arrangement, wouldn't it?"
Mr. Cord had a narrow escape from laughing out loud, which would have
cost him the friendship of the man with whom on the whole he really
agreed. He thought it was time to interfere.
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