MENDOZA. Wine, kids, milk, cheese and bread can be procured for ready money. STRAKER. [graciously] Now you're talking. TANNER. Are you all Socialists here, may I ask? MENDOZA. [repudiating this humiliating misconception] Oh no, no, no: nothing of the kind, I assure you. We naturally have modern views as to the justice of the existing distribution of wealth: otherwise we should lose our self-respect. But nothing that you could take exception to, except two or three faddists. TANNER. I had no intention of suggesting anything discreditable. In fact, I am a bit of a Socialist myself. STRAKER. [drily] Most rich men are, I notice. MENDOZA. Quite so. It has reached us, I admit. It is in the air of the century. STRAKER. Socialism must be looking up a bit if your chaps are taking to it. MENDOZA. That is true, sir. A movement which is confined to philosophers and honest men can never exercise any real political influence: there are too few of them. Until a movement shows itself capable of spreading among brigands, it can never hope for a political majority. TANNER. But are your brigands any less honest than ordinary citizens? MENDOZA. Sir: I will be frank with you. Brigandage is abnormal. Abnormal professions attract two classes: those who are not good enough for ordinary bourgeois life and those who are too good for it. We are dregs and scum, sir: the dregs very filthy, the scum very superior. STRAKER. Take care! some o the dregs'll hear you. MENDOZA. It does not matter: each brigand thinks himself scum, and likes to hear the others called dregs. TANNER. Come! you are a wit. [Mendoza inclines his head, flattered]. May one ask you a blunt question? MENDOZA. As blunt as you please. TANNER. How does it pay a man of your talent to shepherd such a flock as this on broiled rabbit and prickly pears? I have seen men less gifted, and I'll swear less honest, supping at the Savoy on foie gras and champagne. MENDOZA. Pooh! they have all had their turn at the broiled rabbit, just as I shall have my turn at the Savoy. Indeed, I have had a turn there already--as waiter. TANNER. A waiter! You astonish me! MENDOZA. [reflectively] Yes: I, Mendoza of the Sierra, was a waiter. Hence, perhaps, my cosmopolitanism. [With sudden intensity] Shall I tell you the story of my life? STRAKER. [apprehensively] If it ain't too long, old chap-- TANNER. [interrupting him] Tsh-sh: you are a Philistine, Henry: you have no romance in you. [To Mendoza] You interest me extremely, President. Never mind Henry: he can go to sleep. MENDOZA. The woman I loved-- STRAKER. Oh, this is a love story, is it? Right you are. Go on: I was only afraid you were going to talk about yourself.