Whyland was a genial, gentlemanly fellow of thirty-eight or forty. He was in the world and of it, but was little the worse, thus far, for that. He had been singled out for favours, to a very exceptional degree, by that monster of inconsistency and injustice, the Unearned Increment, but his intentions toward society were still fairly good. If he may be capitalized (and surely he was rich enough to be), he might be described as hesitating whether to be a Plutocrat or a Good Citizen; perhaps he was hoping to be both. Abner disliked and doubted him from the start. The fellow was almost foppish;--could anybody who wore such good clothes have also good motives and good principles? Abner disdained him too as a public speaker;--what could a man hope to accomplish by a few quiet colloquial remarks delivered in his ordinary voice? The man who expected to get attention should claim it by the strident shrillness of his tones, should be able to bend his two knees in eloquent unison, and send one clenched hand with a driving swoop into the palm of the other--and repeat as often as necessary. Abner questioned as well his mental powers, his quality of brain-fibre, his breadth of view. The feeble creature rested in no degree upon the great, broad, fundamental principles--principles whose adoption and enforcement would reshape and glorify human society as nothing else ever had done or ever could do. No, he fell back on mere expediency, mere practicability, weakly acquiescing in acknowledged and long-established evils, and trying for nothing more than fairness and justice on a foundation utterly unjust and vicious to begin with. "Let me get out of this," said Abner. But a few of his own intimates detained him at the door, and presently Whyland, who had ended his remarks and was on his way to other matters, overtook him. An officious bystander made the two acquainted, and Whyland, who identified Abner with the author of _This Weary World_, paused for a few smiling and good-humoured remarks. "Glad to see you here," he said, with a kind of bright buoyancy. "It's a complicated question, but we shall straighten it out one way or another." Abner stared at him sternly. The question was not complicated, but it _was_ vital--too vital for smiles. "There is only one way," he said: "our way." "Our way?" asked Whyland, still smiling. "The Readjusted Tax," pronounced Abner, with a gesture toward two or three of his supporters at his elbow. "Ah, yes," said Whyland quickly, recognising the faces. "If the idea could only be applied!" "It can be," said Abner severely. "It must be." "Yes, it is a very complicated question," the other repeated. "I have read your stories," he went on immediately. "Two or three of them impressed me very much. I hope we shall become better acquainted."