Delay was occasioned at the beginning of the interview.  It proved to be difficult to convey to Dave exactly why he had been summoned.  It appeared that he did not expect a consultation—­rather a lecture by Dave Cowan upon life in its larger aspects.  The Whipples, strangely, were all not a little embarrassed in his presence, and the mere mention of his son caused him to be informative for ten minutes before any of them dared to confine the flow of his discourse within narrower banks.  He dealt volubly with the doctrines espoused by Merle, whereas they wished to be told how to deal with Merle.  As he talked he consulted from time to time a sheaf of clippings brought from a pocket.

“A joke,” began Dave, “all this socialistic talk.  Get this from their platform:  They demand that the country and its wealth be redeemed from the control of private interests and turned over to the people to be administered for the equal benefit of all.  See what they mean?  Going to have a law that a short man can reach as high as a tall man.  Good joke, yes?  Here again:  ’The Socialist Party desires the workers of America to take the economic and political power from the capitalistic class.’  Going to pull themselves off the ground by their boot straps, yes?  Have a law to make the weak strong and the strong weak.  Reads good, don’t it?  And here’s the prize joke—­one big union:  Socialist Party does not interfere in the internal affairs of labour unions, but supports them in all their struggles.  In order, however, that such struggles might attain the maximum of efficiency the socialists favour the closest organic cooperation of all unions as one organized working body.

“Get that?  Lovely, ain’t it?  And when we’re all in one big union, who are we going to strike against?  Against ourselves, of course—­like we do now.  Bricklayers striking against shoemakers and both striking against carpenters, and all of ’em striking against the honest farmer and the farmer striking back, because every one of ’em wants all he can get for his labour and wants to pay as little as he has to for the other fellow’s labour.  One big union, my eye!  Socialists are jokes.  You never saw two of ’em yet that could agree on anything for ten minutes—­except that they want something for nothing.”

The speaker paused impressively.  His listeners stirred with relief, but the tide of his speech again washed in upon them.

“They lack,” said he, pointing the calabash pipe at Gideon Whipple, sitting patiently across the table from him, “they lack the third eye of wisdom.”  He paused again, but only as if to await applause.  There was no intimation that he had done.

“Dear me!” murmured Gideon, politely.  The other Whipples made little sounds of amazement and approval.