“The situation is, indeed, serious,” Mr. Calvin said to Ernest.  “I have little quarrel with the way you have depicted it.  Only I disagree with you about the doom of the middle class.  We shall survive, and we shall overthrow the trusts.”

     “And return to the ways of your fathers,” Ernest finished for him.

“Even so,” Mr. Calvin answered gravely.  “I know it’s a sort of machine-breaking, and that it is absurd.  But then life seems absurd to-day, what of the machinations of the Plutocracy.  And at any rate, our sort of machine-breaking is at least practical and possible, which your dream is not.  Your socialistic dream is . . . well, a dream.  We cannot follow you.”

     “I only wish you fellows knew a little something about evolution
     and sociology,” Ernest said wistfully, as they shook hands.  “We
     would be saved so much trouble if you did.”

CHAPTER X

THE VORTEX

Following like thunder claps upon the Business Men’s dinner, occurred event after event of terrifying moment; and I, little I, who had lived so placidly all my days in the quiet university town, found myself and my personal affairs drawn into the vortex of the great world-affairs.  Whether it was my love for Ernest, or the clear sight he had given me of the society in which I lived, that made me a revolutionist, I know not; but a revolutionist I became, and I was plunged into a whirl of happenings that would have been inconceivable three short months before.

The crisis in my own fortunes came simultaneously with great crises in society.  First of all, father was discharged from the university.  Oh, he was not technically discharged.  His resignation was demanded, that was all.  This, in itself, did not amount to much.  Father, in fact, was delighted.  He was especially delighted because his discharge had been precipitated by the publication of his book, “Economics and Education.”  It clinched his argument, he contended.  What better evidence could be advanced to prove that education was dominated by the capitalist class?

But this proof never got anywhere.  Nobody knew he had been forced to resign from the university.  He was so eminent a scientist that such an announcement, coupled with the reason for his enforced resignation, would have created somewhat of a furor all over the world.  The newspapers showered him with praise and honor, and commended him for having given up the drudgery of the lecture room in order to devote his whole time to scientific research.