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“New York!” I said again, out loud.

A man who must have been standing close beside me for some time spoke suddenly, without salutation or word of prelude.

“You were with Coxey’s Army?”

“Yes,” I said, turning to look at him. I recognized him as a man who sat in one corner of the smoking compartment, listening in an attentive though supercilious manner, and never spoke.

“Wasn’t there plenty to eat?” he asked, in a truculent tone.

“People were very generous along the way.”

“Wasn’t there plenty to eat?” he asked, repeating the question aggressively.

“There was generally enough and sometimes plenty,” I replied. Then I added rather sharply: “I have no case to prove for the Coxeyites, if that’s what you think.”

“I know you haven’t,” he said. “I have no case to make against them either. They are out of work. That’s bad. But people who will ask need not be hungry. You can cut that out. The unemployed eat. You’ve seen it. Do the ravens feed them?”

“What are you driving at?” I asked.

“They all eat,” he repeated. “Ain’t that extraordinary?”