Policeman Billings, sworn to uphold the law and assist in the protection
of property, viewed the complications and mysteries of the social system
with a simple and penetrating logic. The rich are not dangerous, reasoned
Policeman Billings, because they have what they want. But the poor who
have not what they want are, despite paradox and precedent, always to be
watched closely. A raggedly dressed man walking in a dark, lonely street
may be honesty itself. Yet rags, even when worn for virtue's sake, are a
dubious assurance of virtue. They are always ominous to one sworn to
protect property and uphold the law.
There is a maxim by Chateaubriand, or perhaps it was Stendhal--maxims have
a way of leaving home--which claims that the equilibrium of society rests
upon the acquiescence of its oppressed and unfortunate.
* * * * *
In passing the battered chestnut roaster of the unfortunate Mottka,
Policeman Billings was aware in his own way of the foregoing elements of
social philosophy. Mottka had chosen for his little shop an old soapbox
which a wastrel providence had deposited in the alley on Twenty-second
Street, a few feet west of State Street. Here Mottka sat, nursing the fire
of his chestnut roaster with odd bits of refuse which seldom reached the
dignity of coal or even wood.
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