Stephen turned eagerly to the old man at the window.  “I am ready for you, Mr. Darrow.”

Darrow nodded with a reluctant assent.  “I’ve got my Ford around the corner,” he answered.  “If you would like to go up town with me I can show you a thing or two that might interest you.”

“You mean the conditions in this city?”

“The conditions in all cities.  They differ only in the name of the town.”

“He will show you a little—­just a little—­of what getting back to peace means,” said Vetch earnestly.  “By next winter it will be worse, of course, but it has already begun.  The rate of wages is falling—­for wages always fall first—­and the cost of living is still as high as in war times.  Rents are going up every day, Darrow can tell you more about the speculation in rents than I can, and the housing of the working-classes, both white and coloured, is growing worse.  We shall soon be facing the most serious problem of the system under which we live, the problem of the unemployed.  Already it is beginning.  Darrow was telling me just before you came in of a man in one of the houses where he has been working—­a returned soldier too—­who has walked the streets for weeks in search of work.  He has been unable to pay his rent, so of course he is obliged to move somewhere, if he can find a place to move into.  Oh, I realize perfectly what you are going to say!  The brief prosperity of the war still envelops the labouring man in your mind; and you are preparing to remind me of the lace curtains and victrolas of yesterday.  Yes, I admit that lace curtains and victrolas are not necessities.  It was a case where nature cropped out in the wrong spot.  Even the working-man may have suppressed desires, you see, and lace curtains and victrolas may stand not only for the improvidence of the poor, but for the neurasthenic yearnings of the rich.  Talk about the economy of Nature!  Why, nothing in the universe, not even the civilization of man, has ever equalled her indecent prodigality!”

As the man’s words poured out in his rich, deep voice, Stephen stared at him in a silence which reminded him humorously of the pause in church before the sermon began.  Was this the reason of Vetch’s influence and authority—­this flow of ideas, as from a horn of plenty, that left the listener both charmed and bewildered?

“I admit it all,” rejoined the young man, “except that you have discovered the remedy.”

The Governor laughed and settled back in his big leather-covered chair.  “You think that I blow my own horn too loudly,” he continued, “but, after all, who knows how to blow it half so well as I do?  For the same reason some over-sensitive nerve of yours may wince at my behaviour at times, my lack of dignity or reserve; but have I ever lost a vote—­I put it to you plainly—­or the shadow of a vote by an occasional resort to spectacular advertising?  It pays to advertise in politics, we all know that!—­but