"I didn't dispute your idea; only its application. I should be glad if you _could_ make it go. Anything would be better than the present horrible mess. We have 'equality,' and to spare, in the Declaration and the Constitution, but whether or not we shall ever get it in our taxing----" "I am glad to hear you speaking a word for the country people----" began Abner. "The country people?" interrupted Whyland quickly, with a stare. Never more than when among his cattle and poultry was he moved to draw contrasts between the security of his possessions in the country and the insecurity of his possessions in town. "What I am thinking of is the city tax-payer. Urban democracy, working on a large scale, has declared itself finally, and what we have is the organization of the careless, the ignorant, the envious, brought about by the criminal and the semi-criminal, for the spoliation of the well-to-do." Abner began to be ruffled by these cross-references to the city--they were out of place in the uncontaminated country. "I believe in the people," he declared, with his thoughts on the rustic portion of the population. "So do I--within a certain range, and up to a certain point. But I do not believe in the populace," declared Whyland, with his thoughts on the urban portion. "All the difference between potatoes and potato-parings," said Bond, catching at a passing feather. "Soon it will be simply dog eat dog," said Whyland. "No course will be left, even for the best-disposed of us, but to fight the devil with fire. From the assessor and all his works----" "Good Lord deliver us," intoned Bond, who fully shared Whyland's ideas. Abner frowned. His religious sensibilities were affronted by this response. "And from all his followers," added Whyland. "They threaten me in my own office--it comes to that. Well, what shall a man do? Shall he fight or shall he submit? Shall I go into court or shall I compromise with them?" "It comes to one thing in the end," said Bond, "if you value your peace of mind. But even then you can put the best face on it." Whyland sighed. "You mean that there is some choice between my bribing them and their blackmailing me? Well, I expect I may slip down several pegs this coming year--morally." Abner drew away. He was absolutely without any intimacy with the intricacies of civic finances. He merely saw a man--his host--who seemed cynically to be avowing his own corruption and shame,--or at least his willingness to lean in that direction. "Reform," he announced grandly, "will come only from the disinterested efforts of those who bring to the task pure motives and unimpeachable practices." Whyland sighed again. He thought of his realty interests in town, as they lay exposed to spoliation, to confiscation. "I am afraid I shall not be a reformer," he said, in discouragement. Abner shook a condemnatory head in full corroboration. And Whyland, who may have been looking for a prop to wavering principles, shook his own head too.