Page:A Handbook of Anarchy.djvu/12

 of the fish either for themselves or for friends with a taste for it. Other groups would go shooting, exploring, etc., in like manner. Another group would probably stay at the main camp, some because the work of camp fitting was most attractive to them, some because they felt for the time being more interest in that than in anything else, or knew that others felt so. Then when the other groups returned, and the party sat down to supper, it would be simply, who would like fish? who would like game? etc. so long as there was enough of the particular article for each who cared for it to have a share worth eating; if there was not enough for this, then some would stand out of their own accord, and if the deficiency was considerable you would leave the fish, if that was what was short, to those among the fishers who caught it, and next to them those among the unsuccessful fishers, who had fished in the hope of eating fish, or the non-fishers for whom most personally and particularly any of the anglers had gone to the task of fishing. Then, too, one of you might do something to provide for his own convenience; two more might do different things for each other; a fourth might attend to something for a fifth, while the fifth did something for a sixth, and the sixth for someone else; one who had no occasion for assistance would help another who had, and there would be no thought of taking formal recognisances for the return of the compliment, or keeping accounts of the things done for each other, nor would the person who wanted something done go to another who could not do it, and offer to permit him to eat three meals on condition of having the thing done, and that one go to another and offer him leave to eat a quarter of a meal to do it, another a quarter to record the transaction, another a slice for introducing the party who wanted the thing done, and other slices to divers individuals to stand ready with guns to enforce the arrangement! The day after, all these groups and combinations might be changed; some vanished, some composed partly or wholly of new persons, others sprung up new. Nor would there be any persons privileged to rule in these combinations; if indeed anyone was accepted as guide or director in anything you would only take his instructions as advice, and if you did not approve of them, if it was your affair you would go on in your way, if his affair leave him to his way.