Passing through the City Hall Park, he had noticed a group of men, in the centre of which were half a dozen, with flushed faces and raised voices, earnestly carrying on a discussion.

He joined the listeners, and heard a new, alien tongue in the mouths of the philosophers of the people.

One was a tramp, another was a labor agitator, a third was a law-school student, and the remainder was composed of wordy workingmen.

For the first time he heard of socialism, anarchism, and single tax, and learned that there were warring social philosophies.

He heard hundreds of technical words that were new to him, belonging to fields of thought that his meagre reading had never touched upon.