"No; and what's more, no one else ever did or ever will." He looked at her pathetically, and a deeper colour flooded her cheeks. When they reached home Gordon had just returned from the banquet and was bubbling over with enthusiasm. "Mark, we have had a grand time to-night--organised a movement that will put out a sign 'To Let' on every den of thieves in Wall Street." "What? Founded another church already?" "A new Brotherhood within the Church Universal." Overman shrugged his shoulders. "Talk plain English. What will be its name at Police Headquarters?" Gordon smilingly and proudly replied, "The Federated Democracy of the World." "H'm; what are you going to do? Federate the hobos of all tongues and demand better straw in empty freight cars and shorter stops at sidings for express trains to pass?" "Our purpose will be to inaugurate the Cooperative Commonwealth of Man. The movement will bring into harmonious action the insurgent forces of the world. Within ten years an earthquake will shake the social fabric. Within twenty years profound political and social revolutions will lift the human race over centuries of plodding into a new world of real liberty, equality, and fraternity." Overman growled cynically. "That has a French accent. I hear there are fifty thousand active Socialists in France divided into exactly fifty thousand factions. Which division of this grand army will lead the movement in Gaul?" Gordon ignored his interruption, and his voice thrilled with passionate eloquence. "We have abolished crowns and scepters. It is a moral and physical absurdity that, in a democracy, a whiskered babe, whose labour value to society is just ten dollars a week, should inherit millions of dollars that give him the power over men more terrible, absolute and irresponsible than a Caesar ever wielded over the empire of the world. No wonder our papers shiver when these babes sneeze, and report their daily life with servile pride." "And would the oil of anointment of your new king, the walking delegate, be strong enough to temper the onion in his breath? I'd like to know that before drawing too near the throne." The banker's mouth twisted into a sneer with the last word. "This new Democracy will itself be the highest nobility, an ethical aristocracy, and when it comes the Kingdom of Heaven will be at hand." The one eye glanced quickly at the speaker and blinked. "Let me know before it gets here," said Overman, a reminiscent look overspreading his rugged face, while Kate leaned closer with eager interest. "Why?"