"I thought I could make you look up from your book," he answered.
"One has merely to cast a slur upon the poor--your dear poor of
Farlingford--and you are up in arms in an instant. But I am not the
person to cast a slur, since I am one of the poor of Farlingford
myself, and owe it to charity--to the charity of the rectory--that I
can read and write."

"But it came to you very naturally," observed Marvin, looking
vaguely across the marshes to the roofs of the village, "to suggest
that those who live in cottages are of a different race of beings--"

He broke off, following his own thoughts in silence, as men soon
learn to do who have had no companion by them capable of following
whithersoever they may lead.

"Did it?" asked Barebone, sharply. He turned to look at his old
friend and mentor with a sudden quick distress. "I hope not. I
hope it did not sound like that. For you have never taught me such
thoughts, have you? Quite the contrary. And I cannot have learned
it from Clubbe."

He broke off with a laugh of relief, for he had perceived that
Septimus Marvin's thoughts were already elsewhere.

"Perhaps you are right," he added, turning to Miriam. "It may be
that one should go to a republic in order to learn--once for all--
that all men are not equal."

"You say it with so much conviction," was the retort, "that you must
have known it before."