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man professing so much religion, teaching lads like that to lie? But then what can we expect from such a clerical lot of locusts? What can we expect when we allow them to suck here a matter of five hundred millions a year from the vitals of the poverty-stricken people? I say it serves us right: and, moreover than that, we ought to be served out ten thousand times worse. It's amazing to me that the people don't see this. As true as I'm alive, it makes my head turn quite round, when I think of their boney fide blindness. Is it a mite likely, do you think, that I'd stand it if I was the people alone? Do you think that I'd let them get fat upon me? Suppose I was the people—that's the way to put it—suppose that I was the whole of the people, do you think that I'd be swindled by a lot of pensioned paupers in this way? No! not a bit of it. I'll tell you what I'd do. In the first place, I'd send for the king, and I'd say to him, 'Now then, I'll tell you what it is, old fellow: I'm not going to stand this sort of thing any longer, so I tell you. You must abdicate and cut it. I'm not going to allow you to rob me of fifty or sixty millions a-year in this sort of way. You've been amalgamating at a rare rate lately, and you ought to have saved money. If you have, why so much the better for you; if you haven't, go and work for your living like an honest man. I want no king: what's the good of a king to me? What use are you—what do you do? I'm not going to support you in idleness any longer; so that's all about it.' I'd then send for the ministers, and I'd say to them, 'Gentlemen, it's all very fine, I dare say, but you have no more money from me. You've been feathering your nests to a fructifying extent, I've no doubt; but your valuable services are no longer required. I am the people; I can govern myself: at all events I've had enough of you! therefore pack up your traps and be off.' Then I'd send for the bishops, but I'd make mighty short work of them; and the same with the parsons; I'd turn them all adrift. And as for the pensioners, 'What!' I'd say, 'I support a lot of paupers in the lazy lap of luxury? I wish you may get it. No! go to work, and earn an honest livelihood. If you can't do that, apply to the parish. I dare say, indeed, I'm going to let a lot of lazy locusts live on my vitals in this sort of way. Be off! and never let me set eyes on you again.' That would be the only way to work it. What should I want with a king and a lot of lords, what should I want with bishops, parsons, and pensioners? I wouldn't have them. I'd form a republic within myself, and I myself would govern myself. That's what I should do, if I were the whole people; and that's just the way the people ought to do now. They should set to work; and act as one man, and send all the amalgamating oligarchies howling!
"There's something in that," observed Pokey.
"Yes, there is something in it," said Legge, who immediately left the room, smiling.
"I believe you," pursued Obadiah, addressing Pokey alone: "and I'm glad that you agree with me. I find that I shall fructify your ideas a little yet. Look you here. The thing lies in a nutshell. Just place. yourself now in the juxtaposition of the people. You are the people. Very well. Now, do you want a king? Do you want a lot of lords, a myriad of bishops, and about fifty millions of parsons? Do you want them?"