Thus it was that all the reasons for liking Bill Propter were also, in Jo’s eyes, equally valid reasons for disliking him. He continued to call Bill a fool; but he felt him as a standing reproach. And yet the nature of this standing reproach was such that he liked to be in Bill’s company. It was because Bill had settled down on a ten-acre patch of land in this part of the valley that Mr. Stoyte had decided to build his castle on the site where it now stood. He wanted to be near Bill Propter, even though, in practice, there was almost nothing that Bill could do or say that didn’t annoy him. Today, this chronic exasperation had been fanned by Mr. Stoyte’s hatred of the transients into a passion of fury.
“I’ll let him have it,” he repeated again and again.
The car came to a halt and, before the chauffeur could open the door for him, Mr. Stoyte had darted out and was hurrying in his determined way, looking neither to right nor left, up the path that led from the road to his old friend’s bungalow.
“Hullo, Jo,” a familiar voice called from the shadow under the eucalyptus trees.
Mr. Stoyte turned, peered through the twilight, then, without a word, hurried towards the bench on which the three men were sitting. There was a chorus of “Good evenings,” and, as he approached, Pete rose politely and offered him his place. Ignoring his gesture and his very presence, Mr. Stoyte addressed himself immediately to Bill Propter.
“Why the hell can’t you leave my man alone?” he almost shouted.
Mr. Propter looked at him with only a moderate astonishment. He was used to these outbursts from poor Jo; le had long since divined their fundamental cause and knew by experience how to deal with them.
“Which man, Jo?” he asked.
“Bob Hansen, of course. What do you mean by going to him behind my back?”
“When I went to you,” said Mr. Propter, “you told me it was Hansen’s business. So I went to Hansen.”
This was so infuriatingly true that Mr. Stoyte could only resort to roaring. He roared. “Interfering with him in his work! What’s the idea?”
“Pete’s offering you a seat,” Mr. Propter put in. “Or if you prefer it, there’s an iron chair behind you. You’d better sit down, Jo.”
“I’m not going to sit down,” Mr. Stoyte bellowed. “And I want an answer. What’s the idea?”
“The idea?” Mr. Propter repeated in his slow quiet way. “Well, it’s quite an old one, you know, I didn’t invent it.”
“Can’t you answer me?”
“It’s the idea that men and women are human beings. Not vermin.”
“Those bums of yours!”
Mr. Propter turned to Pete. “You may as well sit down again,” he said.
“Those lousy bums! I tell you I won’t stand it,”
“Besides,” Mr. Propter went on, “I’m a practical man. You’re not.”
“Me not practical?” Mr. Stoyte echoed with indignant amazement. “Not practical? Well, look at the place I live in and then look at this dump of yours.”
“Exactly. That proves the point. You’re hopelessly romantic, Jo; so romantic, you think people can work when they haven’t had enough to eat.”
“You’re trying to make Communists of them.” The word Communist renewed Mr. Stoyte’s passion and at the same time justified it; his indignation ceased to be merely personal and became righteous. “You’re nothing but a Communist agitator.” His voice trembled, Mr. Propter sadly noticed, just as Pete’s had trembled half an hour before, at the words “Fascist aggression.” He wondered if the boy had noticed or, having noticed, would take the hint. “Nothing but a Communist agitator,” Mr, Stoyte repeated with a crusader’s zeal.
“I thought we were talking about eating,” said Mr. Propter.
“You’re stalling!”
“Eating and working—wasn’t that it?”
“I’ve put up with you all these years,” Mr. Stoyte went on, “for old times’ sake. But now I’m through. I’m sick of you. Talking Communism to those bums! Making the place dangerous for decent people to live in.
“Decent?” Mr. Propter echoed, and was tempted to laugh, but immediately checked the impulse. Being laughed at in the presence of Pete and Mr. Pordage might goad the poor fellow into doing something irreparably stupid.
“I’ll have you run out of the valley,” Mr. Stoyte was roaring. “I’ll see that you’re . . .” He broke off in the middle of the sentence and stood there for a few seconds in silence, his mouth still open and working, his eyes staring. That drumming in the ears, that tingling heat in the face—they had suddenly reminded him of his blood pressure, of Dr. Obispo, of death. Death and that flame-coloured text in his bedroom at home. Terrible to fall into the hands of the living God—not Prudence’s God, of course; the other one, the real one, the God of his father and his grandmother.
Mr. Stoyte drew a deep breath, pulled out his handkerchief, wiped his face and neck, then, without uttering another word, turned and began to walk away.
Mr. Propter got up, hurried after him and, in spite of the other’s angry motion of recoil, took Mr. Stoyte’s arm and walked along beside him.
“I want to show you something, Jo,” he said. “Something that’ll interest you, I think.”
“I don’t want to see it,” said Mr. Stoyte between his false teeth.
Mr. Propter paid no attention, but continued to lead him towards the back of the house. “It’s a gadget that Abbot of the Smithsonian has been working on for some time,” he continued. “A thing for making use of solar energy.” He interrupted himself for a moment to call back to the others to follow him; then turned again to Mr. Stoyte and resumed the conversation. “Much more compact than anything of the kind that’s ever been made before,” he said. “Much more efficient, too.” And he went on to describe the system of trough-shaped reflectors, the tubes of oil heated to a temperature of four or five hundred degrees Fahrenheit; the boiler for raising steam, if you wanted to run a low-pressure engine; the cooking range and water heater, if you were using it only for domestic purposes. “Pity the sun’s down,” he said, as they stood in front of the machine. “I’d have liked to show you the way it works the engine. I’ve had two horse-power, eight hours a day, ever since I got the thing working last week. Not bad considering we’re still in January. We’ll have her working overtime all summer.”
Mr. Stoyte had intended to persist in his silence—just to show Bill that he was still angry, that he hadn’t forgiven him; but his interest in the machine and, above all, his exasperated concern with Bill’s idiotic, crackpot notions were too much for him. “What the hell do you want with two horse-power, eight hours a day?” he asked.
“To run my electric generator.”
“But what do you want with an electric generator? Haven’t you got your current wired in from the city?”
“Of course. And I’m trying to see how far I can be independent of the city.”
“But what for?”
Mr. Propter uttered a little laugh. “Because I believe in Jeffersonian democracy.”
“What the hell has Jeffersonian democracy got to do with it?” said Mr. Stoyte with mounting irritation. “Can’t you believe in Jefferson and have your current wired in from the city?”
“That’s exactly it,” said Mr. Propter; “you almost certainly can’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I say,” Mr. Propter answered mildly.
“I believe in democracy too,” Mr. Stoyte announced with a look of defiance.
“I know you do. And you also believe in being the undisputed boss in all your businesses.”
“I should hope so!”
“There’s another name for an undisputed boss,” said Mr. Propter. “ ‘Dictator.’ “
“What are you trying to get at?”
“Merely at the facts. You believe in democracy; but you’re at the head of businesses which have to be run dictatorially. And your subordinates have to accept your dictatorship because they’re dependent on you for their living. In Russia they’d depend on government officials for their living. Perhaps you think that’s an improvement,” he added, turning to Pete.
Pete nodded. “I’m all for the public ownership of the means of production,” he said. It was the first time he had openly confessed his faith in the presence of his employer; he felt happy at having dared to be a Daniel.
“Public ownership of the means of production,” Mr. Propter repeated. “But unfortunately governments have a way of regarding the individual producers as being parts of the means. Frankly, I’d rather have Jo Stoyte as my boss than Jo Stalin. This Jo” (he laid his hand on Mr. Stoyte’s shoulder) “this Jo can’t have you executed; he can’t send you to the Arctic; he can’t prevent you from getting a job under another boss. Whereas the other Jo . . .” he shook his head. “Not that,” he added, “I’m exactly longing to have even this Jo as my boss.”
“You’d be fired
