He
said that he talked with all sorts of people, whom he found monstrously
civil, if you took them in the right way; and he went everywhere in the
city without fear and apparently without danger. March could not find out
that he had ridden his hobby into the homes of want which he visited, or
had proposed their enslavement to the inmates as a short and simple
solution of the great question of their lives; he appeared to have
contented himself with the collection of facts for the persuasion of the
cultivated classes. It seemed to March a confirmation of this impression
that the colonel should address his deductions from these facts so
unsparingly to him; he listened with a respectful patience, for which
Fulkerson afterward personally thanked him. Fulkerson said it was not
often the colonel found such a good listener; generally nobody listened
but Mrs. Leighton, who thought his ideas were shocking, but honored him
for holding them so conscientiously. Fulkerson was glad that March, as
the literary department, had treated the old gentleman so well, because
there was an open feud between him and the art department. Beaton was
outrageously rude, Fulkerson must say; though as for that, the old
colonel seemed quite able to take care of himself, and gave Beaton an
unqualified contempt in return for his unmannerliness.
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