Big Poker Site hazard of new fortunes 83

perhaps if you let them have the things without stealing--" "Oh no, no! Most nodt mage them too gonceitedt. They mostnt go and feel themselfs petter than those boor millionairss that hadt to steal their money." March smiled indulgently at his old friends violence. "Oh, there are fagots and fagots, you know, Lindau; perhaps not all the millionaires are so guilty." "Let us speak German!" cried Lindau, in his own tongue, pushing his book aside, and thrusting his skullcap back from his forehead. "How much money can a man honestly earn without wronging or oppressing some other man?" "Well, if youll let me answer in English," said March, "I should say about five thousand dollars a year. I name that figure because its my experience that I never could earn more; but the experience of other men may be different, and if they tell me they can earn ten, or twenty, or fifty thousand a year, Im not prepared to say they cant do it." Lindau hardly waited for his answer. "Not the most gifted man that ever lived, in the practice of any art or science, and paid at the highest rate that exceptional genius could justly demand from those who have worked for their money, could ever earn a million dollars. It is the landlords and the merchant princes, the railroad kings and the coal barons (the oppressors to whom you instinctively give the titles of tyrants)--it is these that make the millions, but no man earns them. What artist, what physician, what scientist, what poet was ever a millionaire?" "I can only think of the poet Rogers," said March, amused by Lindaus tirade. "But he was as exceptional as the other Rogers, the martyr, who died with warm feet." Lindau had apparently not understood his joke, and he went on, with the American ease of mind about everything: "But you must allow, Lindau, that some of those fellows dont do so badly with their guilty gains. Some of them give work to armies of poor people--" Lindau furiously interrupted: "Yes, when they have gathered their millions together from the hunger and cold and nakedness and ruin and despair of hundreds of thousands of other men, they give work to the poor! They give work! They allow their helpless brothers to earn enough to keep life in them! They give work! Who is it gives toil, and where will your rich men be when once the poor shall refuse to give toil? Why, you have come to give me work!" March laughed outright. "Well, Im not a millionaire, anyway, Lindau, and I hope you wont make an example of me by refusing to give toil. I dare say the millionaires deserve it, but Id rather they wouldnt suffer in my person." "No," returned the old man, mildly relaxing the fierce glare he had bent upon March. "No man deserves to sufer at the hands of another. I lose myself when I think of the injustice in the world. But I must not forget that I am like the worst of them." "You might go up Fifth Avenue and live among the rich awhile, when youre in danger of that," suggested March. "At any rate," he added, by an impulse which he knew he could not justify to his wife, "I wish youd come some day and lunch with their emissary. Ive been telling Mrs. March about you, and I want her and the children to see you. Come over with these things and report." He put his hand on the magazines as he rose. "I will come," said Lindau, gently. "Shall I give you your book?" asked March. "No; I gidt oap bretty soon." "And--and--can you dress yourself?" "I vhistle, and one of those lidtle fellowss comess. We haf to dake gare of one another in a blace like this. Idt iss nodt like the worldt," said Lindau, gloomily. March thought he ought to cheer him up. "Oh, it isnt such a bad world, Lindau! After all, the average of millionaires is small in it." He added, "And I dont believe theres an American living that could look at that arm of yours and not wish to lend you a hand for the one you gave us all." March felt this to be a fine turn, and his voice trembled slightly in saying it. Lindau smiled grimly. "You think zo? I wouldnt moch like to drost em. Ive driedt idt too often." He began to speak German again fiercely: "Besides, they owe me nothing. Do you think I knowingly gave my hand to save this oligarchy

Hazard Of New Fortunes page 82        Hazard Of New Fortunes page 84