"When he's hard up I suppose it makes him feel better to worry us, but if he only knew it, he'd be better off if he joined our side."
"Right, you are!" replied Hloucek, "we'd get what we're after if those from the so called upper classes that ought to be with us would only join us. Now-a-days a person can't pick up a newspaper, but he finds something about our 'educated lower classes.' Then we must be the 'ignorant lower classes'; still it takes both kinds to make the 'lower classes'. If we could come to an understanding, the learned and unlearned sufferers, and become united, it wouldn't be long before the labor question would be satisfactorily settled." Hloucek took another deep draught, and emptied the pitcher into Sykora's glass.
"Fana, the pitcher's empty," he said, fumbling in his pocket for some change. "Get us something more to eat; if you haven't any money of your own, have it charged; I guess they'll trust you," he added complacently.
"Much sooner than they would some richer folks!" proudly replied Fana.
"A laborer never cheats anybody," said Sykora, after her departure. "It's only those that belong to the upper classes that make debts which they never mean to pay. A laboring man would work like a cart horse to pay his debts to the last farthing. That's one of the differences between the educated and the uneducated lower classes, too. I've always wondered why it is that education pays so poorly in the world."
"Because there's no use for it," replied Hloucek gazing into the empty glass.
"Why do so many people take so much trouble to get it, then?"
"You simpleton! Because they don't want to work with their hands as we do; they look for something easier."
"But they don't find it. They have their troubles like us."
"Very true. Still, lots of them do find the work they want."
"And who gives it to them?" asked Sykora.
"We, Sykora, we give it to them."
"We? How?" replied the younger man, much perplexed.
"Why, to-day didn't you give the adjutant half a day's work? And haven't we furnished the police officers plenty of work? And don't our comrades in Prague and elsewhere furnish the police and judges with work all the time?"
"I never looked at it in that light before," replied Sykora, not a little surprised at the profundity of Hloucek's wisdom. "Still, that's not enough to keep all of them employed. How is it in towns where there are no socialists?"
"Oh, we give them plenty to do. They say we are coarse and ignorant, we must be refined and instructed; we are quarrelsome and discontented, we must be watched; we are wicked and godless, they must try to save our souls. They must teach us, watch us, try us, punish us—plenty of work do we furnish to the so called 'upper classes.'"
"So that's why we have a right to demand steady employment from the classes that rule—work for work!"
At this moment Fana returned, and told how she had seen the adjutant at that late hour just coming home from his office, followed by the office boy with a large roll of papers. The laborers laughed heartily, and immediately attacked the new viands with as much zest as if they had not yet eaten a mouthful.
II
In the house opposite, in the humble rooms on the first floor facing the street, the family of the court adjutant, Jeromir Sadovsky, was sitting down to the supper table, upon which stood a lighted lamp with a green shade. The family consisted of the parents, a sixteen year old girl, and a boy about twelve years of age.
The parents seemed much older than they really were. Disease, anxiety and want do not give youth, strength, nor beauty; both husband and wife were faded and worn. His tall, thin, lank form was bent, and his skin was yellow and dry like parchment; his head was bald, his eyes weak and sunken, his breathing short
