“This is intolerable!” Colonel Van Gilbert cried out.  “This is insult!”

“That you should not answer is intolerable,” Ernest replied gravely.  “No man can be intellectually insulted.  Insult, in its very nature, is emotional.  Recover yourself.  Give me an intellectual answer to my intellectual charge that the capitalist class has mismanaged society.”

Colonel Van Gilbert remained silent, a sullen, superior expression on his face, such as will appear on the face of a man who will not bandy words with a ruffian.

“Do not be downcast,” Ernest said.  “Take consolation in the fact that no member of your class has ever yet answered that charge.”  He turned to the other men who were anxious to speak.  “And now it’s your chance.  Fire away, and do not forget that I here challenge you to give the answer that Colonel Van Gilbert has failed to give.”

It would be impossible for me to write all that was said in the discussion.  I never realized before how many words could be spoken in three short hours.  At any rate, it was glorious.  The more his opponents grew excited, the more Ernest deliberately excited them.  He had an encyclopaedic command of the field of knowledge, and by a word or a phrase, by delicate rapier thrusts, he punctured them.  He named the points of their illogic.  This was a false syllogism, that conclusion had no connection with the premise, while that next premise was an impostor because it had cunningly hidden in it the conclusion that was being attempted to be proved.  This was an error, that was an assumption, and the next was an assertion contrary to ascertained truth as printed in all the text-books.

And so it went.  Sometimes he exchanged the rapier for the club and went smashing amongst their thoughts right and left.  And always he demanded facts and refused to discuss theories.  And his facts made for them a Waterloo.  When they attacked the working class, he always retorted, “The pot calling the kettle black; that is no answer to the charge that your own face is dirty.”  And to one and all he said:  “Why have you not answered the charge that your class has mismanaged?  You have talked about other things and things concerning other things, but you have not answered.  Is it because you have no answer?”

It was at the end of the discussion that Mr. Wickson spoke.  He was the only one that was cool, and Ernest treated him with a respect he had not accorded the others.

“No answer is necessary,” Mr. Wickson said with slow deliberation.  “I have followed the whole discussion with amazement and disgust.  I am disgusted with you gentlemen, members of my class.  You have behaved like foolish little schoolboys, what with intruding ethics and the thunder of the common politician into such a discussion.  You have been outgeneralled and outclassed.  You have been very wordy, and all you have done is buzz.  You have buzzed like gnats about a bear.  Gentlemen, there stands the bear” (he pointed at Ernest), “and your buzzing has only tickled his ears.