The World of Chance by William Dean Howells

"If ever I come again," Ray vowed to himself, when he got into the / street, "I think I shall know it! " He abhorred all sorts of social / outlandishness; he had always wished to be conformed, without and / within, to the great world of smooth respectabilities. If for the / present he was willing to Bohemianize a little, it was in his quality of / author, and as part of a world-old tradition. To have been mixed up with / a lot of howling dervishes like those people was intolerable. He tingled / with a sense of personal injury from Hughes's asking him to take part in / their discussion; and he was all the angrier because he could not resent / it, even to Kane, on account of that young girl, who could not let him / see that it distressed her, too; he felt bound to her by the tie of / favor done which he must not allow to become painful.

He knew, as they walked rapidly down the avenue, crazy with the trains / hurtling by over the jingling horse-cars and the clattering holiday / crowds, that old Kane was seeking out his with eyes brimming with / laughter, but he would not look at him, and he would not see any fun in / the affair. He would not speak, and he held his tongue the more / resolutely because he believed Kane meant to make him speak first.

He had his way; it was Kane who broke the silence, after they left the / avenue and struck into one of the cross-streets leading to the Park. / Piles of lumber and barrels of cement blocked two-thirds of its space, / in front of half-built houses, which yawned upon it from cavernous / depths. Boys were playing over the boards and barrels, and on the rocky / hill-side behind the houses, where a portable engine stood at Sunday / rest, and tall derricks rose and stretched their idle arms abroad. At / the top of the hill a row of brown-stone fronts looked serenely down / upon the havoc thrown up by the blasting, as if it were a quiet / pleasance.

"Amiable prospect, isn't it? " said Kane. "It looks as if Hughes's Afreet / has got out of his bottle, and had a good time here, holding on for a / rise, and then building on spec. But perhaps we oughtn't to judge of it / at this stage, when everything is in transition. Think how beautiful it / will be when it is all solidly built up here as it is down-town! " He / passed his hand through Ray's lax arm, and leaned affectionately toward / him as they walked on, after a little pause he made for this remark on / the scenery. "Well, my dear young friend, what do you think of my dear / old friend?"

"Of Mr. Hughes? " Ray asked; and he restrained himself in a pretended / question.

"Of Mr. Hughes, and of Mr. Hughes's friends."

Ray flashed out upon this. "I think his friends are a lot of cranks."

"Yes; very good; very excellent good! They _are_ a lot of cranks. Are / they the first you have met in New York?"

"No; the place seems to be full of them."

"Beginning with the elderly gentleman whom you met the first morning?"

"Beginning with the young man who met the elderly gentleman."

Kane smiled with appreciation. "Well, we won't be harsh on those two. We / won't call _them_ cranks. They are philosophical observers, or inspired / dreamers, if you like. As I understand it, we are all dreamers. If we / like a man's dream, we call him a prophet; if we don't like his dream, / we call him a crank. Now, what is the matter with the dreams, severally / and collectively, of my dear old friend and his friends? Can you deny / that any one of their remedies, if taken faithfully according to the / directions blown on the bottle, would cure the world of all its woes / inside of six months?"

The question gave Ray a chance to vent his vexation impersonally. "What / is the matter with the world? " he burst out. "I don't see that the world / is so very sick. Why isn't it going on very well? I don't understand / what this talk is all about. I don't see what those people have got to / complain of. All any one can ask is a fair chance to show how much his / work is worth, and let the best man win. What's the trouble? Where's the / wrong?"

"Ah," said Kane, "what a pity you didn't set forth those ideas when / Hughes called upon you!"

"And have all that crew jump on me? Thank you! " said Ray.

"You would call them a crew, then? Perhaps they were a crew," said Kane. / "I don't know why a reformer should be so grotesque; but he is, and he / is always the easy prey of caricature. I couldn't help feeling to-day / how very like the burlesque reformers the real reformers are. And they / are always the same, from generation to generation. For all outward / difference, those men and brethren of both sexes at poor David's were / very like a group of old-time abolitionists conscientiously qualifying / themselves for tar and feathers. Perhaps you don't like being spoken to / in meeting?"

"No, I don't," said Ray, bluntly.

"I fancied a certain reluctance in you at the time, but I don't think / poor David meant any harm. He preaches patience, but I think he secretly / feels that he's got to hurry, if he's going to have the kingdom of / heaven on earth in his time; and he wants every one to lend a hand."

For the reason, or from the instinct, that forbade Ray to let out his / wrath directly against Hughes, he now concealed his pity. He asked / stiffly: "Couldn't he be got into some better place? Where he wouldn't / be stunned when he tried to keep from suffocating?"

"No, I don't know that he could," said Kane, with a pensive singleness / rare in him. "Any help of that kind would mean dependence, and David / Hughes is proud."