"Europe is honey-combed with them. They are growing in secret as rapidly
as some kindred societies are growing in the open. Look at the German
socialists--in 1871 they polled only 120,000 votes; in 1874 they polled
340,000: I imagine that Herr Furst von Bismarck will find some
difficulty in suppressing that Frankenstein monster he coquetted so long
with. Then the Knights of Labor in America: you will hear something of
them by-and-by, or I am mistaken. In secret and in the open alike there
is a vast power growing and growing, increasing in volume and bulk from
hour to hour, from year to year, God only knows in what fashion it will
reveal itself. But you may depend on it that when the spark does spring
out of the cloud--when the clearance of the atmosphere is due--people
will look back on 1688, and 1798, and 1848 as mere playthings. The Great
Revolution is still to come; it may be nearer than some imagine."

He had grown more earnest, both in his manner and his speech.

"Well," George Brand said, "timid people may reassure themselves. Where
there are so many societiets, there will be as many different aims.
Some, like the wilder German socialists, will want a general
participation of property; others a demolition of the churches and
crucifixion of the priests; others the establishment of a Universal
Republic. There may be a great deal of powder stored up, but it will all
go off in different directions, in little fireworks."

A quick light gleamed in those deep-set, lion-like eyes.

"Very well said!" was the scornful comment. "The Czar himself could not
have expressed his belief, or at least his hope, more neatly. But let me
tell you, sir, that the masses of mankind are not such hopeless idiots
as are some of the feather-headed orators and writers who speak for