“Take the things back to the kitchen, Henderson,” said Queed.  “I’ll ring when we are ready.”

The breeze was freshening, blowing full upon Surface, who did not appear to notice it.  Queed got up and lowered the window.  The old man’s neglected cigarette burned his fingers; he lit another; it, too, burned itself down to the cork-tip without receiving the attention of a puff.

Presently he went on talking: 

“I was of a high-spirited line.  Thank God, I never learned to fawn on the hand that lashed me.  Insult I would not brook.  I struck back, and when I struck, I struck to kill.—­Did I not?  So hard that the State reeled....  So hard that if I had had something better than mean negroes and worse whites for my tools, fifth-rate scavengers, buzzards of politics ... this hand would have written the history of the State in these forty years.

“That was the way I struck, and how did they answer me?—­Ostracism ...  Coventry ...  The weapons of mean old women, and dogs....  The dogs!  That is what they were....

“Well, other arms were ready to receive me.  Others were fairer-minded than the cowardly bigots who could blow hot or cold as their selfish interests and prostituted leaders whispered.  I was not a man to be kept down.  Oh, my new friends were legion, and I was king again.  But it was never the same.  In that way, they beat me.  I give them that....  Not they, though.  It was deep calling to deep.  My blood—­heritage—­tradition—­education—­all that I was ... this was what tortured me with what was gone, and kept calling.

“Wicked injustice and a lost birthright....  Oh, memory was there to crucify me, by day and by night.  And yet....  Why, it was a thing that is done every day by men these people say their prayers to....  Oh, yes—­I wanted to punish—­him for his smug condescension, his patronizing playing of the good Samaritan.  And through him all these others ... show them that their old idol wore claws on those feet of clay.  But not in that way.  No, a much cleverer way than that.  Perhaps there would be no money when they asked for it, but I was to smile blandly and go on about my business.  They were never to reach me.  But the Surfaces were never skilled at juggling dirty money....

“They took me off my guard.  The most technical fault—­a trifle....  Another day or two and everything would have been all right.  They had my word for it—­and you know how they replied....  The infamous tyranny of the majority.  The greatest judicial crime in a decade, and they laughed.

“So now I lie awake in the long nights with nine years of that to look back on.

“Let my life be a lesson to you teaching you—­if nothing else—­that it is of no use to fight society.  They have a hopeless advantage, the contemptible advantage of numbers, and they are not ashamed to use it....  But my spirit would not let me lie quiet under injury and insult.  I was ever a fighter, born to die with my spurs on.  And when I die at last, they will find that I go with a Parthian shot ... and after all have the last word.