"What's that--a Socialist?"
"I can't tell you. Nobody knows. But really, I suppose, a Socialist is
a man born before the world got used to steam and electricity. Those
things made a lot of changes, you see, and in the confusion some
people didn't get quite as square a deal as they deserved; or at
least, they didn't think they had. It takes time, really, as I
suppose, to settle down after any great change. It's like moving a
house."
"I see," said Jimmy sagely. "But, Black Bart, you always seemed to me
like as if, now, well, like you was studyin' or something, somehow.
Ain't you never had no good times before?"
"No. This is about the first really good time I ever had in all my
life. You see, you can't really understand things that you look at
from a long way off--you've got to get right in with folks to know
what folks are. Don't you think so?"
"I know it!" answered Jimmy, with conviction. And I recalled, though
he did not, the fact that he bathed daily, Lafitte weekly, yet no
gulf was fixed between their portions of the general humanity.
"It must be nice to be rich," ventured Lafitte presently. "I'm going
to be, some day."
"Is that why you go a-pirating?" I smiled.
"Maybe. But mostly, because I like it."
"It's a sort of game," said L'Olonnois.
"All life is a sort of game, my hearties," said I. "What you two just
have said covers most of the noble trade of piracy and nearly all of
the pretty game of life. You are wise as I am, wise as any man,
indeed."
"What I like about you, Black Bart," resumed L'Olonnois, naively, "is,
you seem always fair."
I flushed at this, suddenly, and pushed back my plate. "Jimmy," said I
at last, "I would rather have heard that, from you, than to hear I had
made a million dollars from pearls or anything else. For that has
always been my great hope and wish--that some day I could teach myself
always to be fair--not to deceive anybody, most of all not myself; in
short, to be fair. Brother, I thank you, if you really believe I have
succeeded to some extent."
"Why ain't you always jolly, like you was havin' a good time, then?"
demanded my blue-eyed inquisitor. "Honor bright!"
"Must it be honor bright?"
"Yes."
"Then I will tell you. It is because of the first chapter of Genesis,
Jimmy."
"What's that?"
"Fie! Fie! Jimmy, haven't you read that?" He shook his head.
"I've read a little about the fights," he said, "when Saul 'n' David
'n' a lot of 'em slew them tens of thousands. But Genesis was dry."
"Do you remember any place where it says 'Male and female created He
them'?"