working class. Your hands are soft with the work others have performed
for you. Your stomachs are round with the plenitude of eating." (Here
Dr. Ballingford winced, and every eye glanced at his prodigious girth.
It was said he had not seen his own feet in years.) "And your minds are
filled with doctrines that are buttresses of the established order. You
are as much mercenaries (sincere mercenaries, I grant) as were the men
of the Swiss Guard.* Be true to your salt and your hire; guard, with
your preaching, the interests of your employers; but do not come down to
the working class and serve as false leaders. You cannot honestly be in
the two camps at once. The working class has done without you. Believe
me, the working class will continue to do without you. And, furthermore,
the working class can do better without you than with you."

* The hired foreign palace guards of Louis XVI, a king of
France that was beheaded by his people.



CHAPTER II

CHALLENGES.


After the guests had gone, father threw himself into a chair and gave
vent to roars of Gargantuan laughter. Not since the death of my mother
had I known him to laugh so heartily.

"I'll wager Dr. Hammerfield was never up against anything like it in his
life," he laughed. "'The courtesies of ecclesiastical controversy!' Did
you notice how he began like a lamb--Everhard, I mean, and how quickly