Page:Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.djvu/131

 'Wot the bloody 'ell are you laughin' at?' Crass demanded in an indignant tone.

'I was laughing because you said you think this world is hell.'

'Well, I don't see nothing to laugh at in that,' said Crass.

'So it is a 'ell,' said Easton. 'There can't be anywheres much worse than this.'

Ear, 'ear!' said the man behind the moat.

'What I was laughing at is this,' said Owen; 'the present system of managing the affairs of the world is so bad and has produced such dreadful results that you are of opinion that the earth is a hell, and yet you are a Conservative! You wish to preserve the present system—the system which has made the world into a hell!'

'I thought we shouldn't get through the dinner hour without politics if Owen was 'ere,' growled Bundy. 'Bloody sickenin' I call it.'

'Don't be 'ard on 'im,' said Philpot; 'e's been very quiet fer the last few days.'

'We'll 'ave to go through it to-day, though,' remarked Harlow despairingly. 'I can see it comin'.'

Im not agoin' through it,' said Bundy, 'I'm orf!' and he accordingly drank the remainder of his tea, closed his empty dinner basket, and having placed it on the mantelshelf, made for the door.

'I'll leave you to it,' he said as he went out. The others laughed.

Crass, remembering the cutting from the 'Obscurer' that he had in his pocket was secretly very pleased at the turn the conversation was taking. He turned roughly on Owen:

'The other day, when we was talkin' about the cause of poverty, you contradicted everybody. Everyone else was wrong! But you yourself couldn't tell us what's the cause of poverty, could yer?'

'I think I could.'

'Oh, of course you think you know,' sneered Crass; 'and of course you think your opinion's right and everybody else's is wrong.'

'Yes,' replied Owen.

Several men expressed their abhorrence of this intolerant attitude of Owen's, but the latter rejoined:

'Of course I think that my opinions are right and that everyone who differs from me is wrong. If I didn't think their 119