Clara laughed. “Oh, nonsense,” she cried. “Your father amounted to something.” “He started as a pack peddler.” Clara would not be outdone in generous candor. “Well--papa was a farm hand. Don’t all that sort of thing seem terribly far away, Nell? Just look at _us_. Think of _us_ marrying a man like this Helm.” Miss Clearwater shivered. “He was pretty dreadful--wasn’t he?” “I don’t suppose the poor fellow ever had a decent suit in his life--or ever before met ladies.” “Yet,” said Miss Clearwater, absent and reflective, “there’s no telling what he’ll be, before he gets through.” “Talking about your conquest, Nell?” called Bart from the front seat. Miss Clearwater colored haughtily. Clara cried, “Don’t be rude, Bart.” “Rude?” retorted Hollister. “Anyone could see with half an eye that he was overhead in love with Nell. Wait till he comes to call.” “Call?” Clara laughed. “He’d never venture to appear at our front door.” “We’ll go to hear him when he strikes Harrison,” said Bart. “Indeed we’ll not,” replied his sister. “He’d misunderstand and presume. Don’t you think so, Nell?” “Yes,” replied Miss Clearwater promptly--too promptly. But long before Helm and his campaign reached Harrison there were other reasons why the Hollisters, indeed all the “best people,” could not show themselves at a Helm meeting. The ignorance of the mass of mankind has made government an arrangement whereunder the many labor for the prosperity of the few. The pretexts for this scheme and the devices for carrying it out have varied; but the scheme itself has not varied--and will not vary until the night of ignorance and the fog of prejudice shall have been rolled away. All things considered, it is most creditable to human nature and most significant of the moral power of enlightenment, that the intelligent few have dealt so moderately with their benighted fellows and have worked so industriously to end their own domination by teaching their servitors the way of emancipation; for let it not be forgotten that the light comes only from above, that the man who has emancipated himself could always, if he chose, be oppressor. Our modern American version of this ancient scheme of the few exploiting the many consists of two essential parts--laws cunningly designed to enable the few to establish their toll gates upon every road of labor; courts shrewdly officered so that the judges can, if they will, issue the licenses for the aforesaid toll gates, which are not as a rule established, but simply permitted, by the law. The treacherous legislator enacts the slyly worded authorization; the subservient judge--no, rather, the judge chosen from, and in sympathy with, the dominant class--reads the permissive statute as mandatory.