Oh! ho! the thought suggests itself to me that I have been very awkward in this business. When a person wishes to enjoy the property of other people, he will, unless he is a fool, act _in accordance_ with the law, and not _in violation_ of it. Consequently, just as you have made yourself a protectionist, I will make myself a socialist. Since you have laid claim to the _right to profit_, I claim the _right to labor_, or to the instruments of labor. For the rest, I read my Louis Blanc in prison, and I know by heart this doctrine: "In order to disenthrall themselves, the common people have need of tools to work with; it is the function of the government to provide them." And again: "If one admits that, in order to be really free, a man requires the ability to exercise and to develop his faculties, the result is that society owes each of its members instruction, without which the human mind is incapable of development, and the instruments of labor, without which human activities have no field for their exercise. But by what means can society give to each one of its members the necessary instruction and the necessary instruments of labor, except by the intervention of the State?" So that if it becomes necessary to revolutionize the country, I also will force my way into the halls of legislation. I also will pervert the law, and make it perform in my behalf and at your expense the very act for which it just now punished me. My decree is modeled after yours: SECTION 1. There shall be taxes levied upon every citizen, and especially upon iron founders. SEC. 2. The proceeds of this tax shall be applied to the creation of armed corps, to which the title of the _fraternal constabulary_ shall be given. SEC. 3. It shall be the duty of the _fraternal constabulary_ to make their way into the warehouses of hatchets, saws, etc., to take possession of these tools, and to distribute them to such workingmen as may desire them. Thanks to this ingenious device, you see, my lord, that I shall no longer be obliged to bear the risks, the costs, the odium, or the scruples of robbery. The State will rob for me as it has for you. We shall both be playing the same game.