"But that's just what makes me so mad, man!" he cried. "If he'd been vicious I could have kicked his back-side with joy. But you couldn't kick Ned. You can't kick a pathetic vacuum." He added with a swagger: "No man can accuse Hans Caspar of being afraid to use the jack-boot. You don't kick bottoms half enough in England." "There's plenty of kicking bottoms," answered the other. "The trouble is that the men who kick bottoms never get their own kicked. If every man who kicked knew for certain that he would automatically be kicked in his turn, we might get on a bit." Hans Caspar chuckled. "Your idea of Utopia," he said. "Everybody standing round in a circle, with his hands on the shoulders of the man in front, hacking him. I like it." "I believe," chanted Mr. Trupp, "in the Big Stick. That's my creed. But I want it applied by everybody to everybody--not by the strong to the weak as we do in this country, and you do in yours." "My firm belief you're this new-fangled creature--a Socialist," said Hans Caspar. "What if I am!" grunted the other. In fact, in London he had attended meetings of the recently born Fabian Society, and had heard William Morris preach on Sunday evenings in the stables of Kelmscott House. The young surgeon had found himself in general sympathy with the views expounded, but like many another man could not tolerate the personalities of the expounders of the new creed. "Apart from Morris, they're such prigs," he would say, "and so blatant about it. Always thrusting their alleged intellectual superiority down your throat. And after all, they're only advocating what every sensible man must advocate--the application of the method of Science to the problems of Government." Mr. Caspar had gone to the window and was staring out. "How long'll that boy of mine last the pace he's going?" he asked, subdued again. "He might last thirty years yet," the other answered. Hans Caspar turned round. "With that woman to run him, you mean?" "What woman's that?" "His wife." It was Mr. Trupp's turn to look away. "She's the sort for him," he mumbled warily. The other broke in with vehement enthusiasm. "The sort for him!--why, if I'd married a woman like that--with a back-bone like steel, and the jaws of a rat-trap--I'd have been a Napoleon." Mr. Trupp's face was still averted. Its naturally shrewd expression had for the moment a satirical touch. "You think he's a lucky fellow to get her?" said the other. Mr. Trupp's silence was eloquent enough. "Ah," continued Hans Caspar knowingly. "I see. You think _she_ got him. I dare say. She's the sort of woman who'd get anything she wanted. And he's the kind of man who'd be got by the first woman who wanted him. I took the measure of her at first sight. Fact I was just going to offer her the job of manageress of my canteen at rail-head--when I found out. She'd make the navvies sit up, I'll swear." "Her hands are pretty full as it is," commented Mr. Trupp.