“I take it as proof that Berkeley’s metaphysics did not work, because—­” Ernest paused calmly for a moment.  “Because Berkeley made an invariable practice of going through doors instead of walls.  Because he trusted his life to solid bread and butter and roast beef.  Because he shaved himself with a razor that worked when it removed the hair from his face.”

“But those are actual things!” Dr. Hammerfield cried.  “Metaphysics is of the mind.”

“And they work—­in the mind?” Ernest queried softly.

The other nodded.

“And even a multitude of angels can dance on the point of a needle—­in the mind,” Ernest went on reflectively.  “And a blubber-eating, fur-clad god can exist and work—­in the mind; and there are no proofs to the contrary—­in the mind.  I suppose, Doctor, you live in the mind?”

“My mind to me a kingdom is,” was the answer.

“That’s another way of saying that you live up in the air.  But you come back to earth at meal-time, I am sure, or when an earthquake happens along.  Or, tell me, Doctor, do you have no apprehension in an earthquake that that incorporeal body of yours will be hit by an immaterial brick?”

Instantly, and quite unconsciously, Dr. Hammerfield’s hand shot up to his head, where a scar disappeared under the hair.  It happened that Ernest had blundered on an apposite illustration.  Dr. Hammerfield had been nearly killed in the Great Earthquake* by a falling chimney.  Everybody broke out into roars of laughter.

     * The Great Earthquake of 1906 A.D. that destroyed San
     Francisco.

“Well?” Ernest asked, when the merriment had subsided.  “Proofs to the contrary?”

And in the silence he asked again, “Well?” Then he added, “Still well, but not so well, that argument of yours.”

But Dr. Hammerfield was temporarily crushed, and the battle raged on in new directions.  On point after point, Ernest challenged the ministers.  When they affirmed that they knew the working class, he told them fundamental truths about the working class that they did not know, and challenged them for disproofs.  He gave them facts, always facts, checked their excursions into the air, and brought them back to the solid earth and its facts.

How the scene comes back to me!  I can hear him now, with that war-note in his voice, flaying them with his facts, each fact a lash that stung and stung again.  And he was merciless.  He took no quarter,* and gave none.  I can never forget the flaying he gave them at the end: 

* This figure arises from the customs of the times.  When, among men fighting to the death in their wild-animal way, a beaten man threw down his weapons, it was at the option of the victor to slay him or spare him.

“You have repeatedly confessed to-night, by direct avowal or ignorant statement, that you do not know the working class.  But you are not to be blamed for this.  How can you know anything about