Arnold said, “There certainly is. A frightful lot. If one goes down to the Docks any day one may hear a good deal of it being said; only that’s nearly all on one side, and the wrong side.... I loathe the Unions and their whole system; it’s revolting, the whole theory of the thing, quite apart from the bullying and coercion.” “I should rather like,” said Eddy, “to go down to the Docks to-morrow and hear the men speaking. Will you come?” “Well, I can’t answer for myself; I may murder someone; but I’ll come if you’ll take the risk of that.” Eddy hadn’t known before that Arnold, the cynical and negligent, felt so strongly about anything. He was rather interested. “You’ve got to _have_ Unions, surely you’d admit that,” he argued. This began a discussion too familiar in outline to be retailed; the reasons for Unions and against them are both exceedingly obvious, and may be imagined as given. It lasted them till late at night. They went down to the Docks next day, about six o’clock in the evening. CHAPTER XV. ARNOLD. There was a crowd outside the Docks gates. Some, under the eyes of vigilant policemen, were picketing the groups of workmen as they came sullenly, nervously, defiantly, or indifferently out from the Docks. Others were listening to a young man speaking from a cart. Arnold and Eddy stopped to listen, too. It was poor stuff; not at all interesting. But it was adapted to its object and its audience, and punctuated by vehement applause. At the cheering, Arnold looked disgustedly on the ground; no doubt he was ashamed of the human race. But Eddy thought, “The man’s a fool, but he’s got hold of something sound. The man’s a stupid man, but he’s got brains on his side, and strength, and organisation; all the forces that make for civilisation. They’re crude, they’re brutal, they’re revolting, these people, but they do look ahead, and that’s civilisation.” The Tory-Socialist side of him thus appreciated, while the Liberal-Individualist side applauded the blacklegs coming up from work. The human side applauded them, too; they were few among many, plucky men surrounded by murderous bullies, who would as likely as not track some of them home and bash their heads in on their own doorsteps, and perhaps their wives’ heads too. Eddy caught sight of Fred Webb and his two sons walking in a group, surrounded by picketters. Suddenly the scene became a nightmare to him, impossibly dreadful. Somehow he knew that people were going to hurt and be hurt very soon. He looked at the few police, and wondered at the helplessness or indifference of the law, that lets such things be, that is powerless to guard citizens from assault and murder. He heard Arnold give a short laugh at his side, and recalled his attention to what the man on the cart was saying. “The poor lunatic can’t even make sense and logic out of his own case,” Arnold remarked. “I could do it better myself.” Eddy listened. It was indeed pathetically stupid, pointless, sentimental.