"The laborer has got some hard lessons to learn. This trouble is only a
small part of the bigger trouble. He wants to get more than he is worth.
And all our education, the higher education, is a bad thing." He turned
with marked emphasis toward the young doctor. "That's why I wouldn't give a
dollar to any begging college--not a dollar to make a lot of discontented,
lazy duffers who go round exciting workingmen to think they're badly
treated. Every dollar given a man to educate himself above his natural
position is a dollar given to disturb society."

Before Sommers could accept the challenge in this speech, Miss Hitchcock
asked,--

"But what did you do with your visitor, papa?"

"Well, we had some more talk," he replied evasively. "Maybe that's why I
missed you, Brome, at the club. He stayed most an hour."

"Did he go then?" the girl pressed on mischievously.

"Well, I gave him a 'yob' over at the yards. It wasn't much of a 'yob'
though."

This speech aroused some laughter, and the talk drifted on in little waves
into safer channels. The episode, however, seemed to have made an undue
impression upon Sommers. Miss Hitchcock's efforts to bring him into the
conversation failed. As for Mrs. Lindsay, he paid her not the slightest
attention. He was coolly taking his own time to think, without any sense of
social responsibility.