{"product_id":"2940013693531","title":"The Prodigal Parents","description":"In the darkness of the country road after midnight the car was\u003cbr\u003espeeding, but the three young men jammed together in the one seat\u003cbr\u003edid not worry.  They were exhilarated by the violence of the\u003cbr\u003espeeches they had heard at the strikers' mass meeting in the\u003cbr\u003efactory town of Cathay.  When the car skidded slightly on a turn\u003cbr\u003eand the left-hand wheels crunched on the gravelled shoulder, the\u003cbr\u003edriver yelped, 'Hey, whoa-up!'  But she did not whoa-up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey were not drunk, except with high spirits.  They had had a few\u003cbr\u003ebottles of beer, but what intoxicated them was the drama of thick-\u003cbr\u003enecked, bright-eyed strike leaders denouncing the tyranny of the\u003cbr\u003ebosses, the press, the taxpayers and all other oppressors.  Two of\u003cbr\u003ethe young men were juniors in Truxon College, and as they\u003cbr\u003econsidered themselves to have been frequently and ludicrously\u003cbr\u003emisjudged by their own bosses, their parents and professors, they\u003cbr\u003ewould (they told themselves) have stayed on in Cathay, joined the\u003cbr\u003epicket line, brave with bricks and pick handles, and probably have\u003cbr\u003ebeen gloriously killed, had it not been for a critically important\u003cbr\u003efraternity dance at Truxon next evening.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a substitute for thus entering the martyrs' profession, they now\u003cbr\u003ehowled a song which stated that Labour was a Mighty Giant which was\u003cbr\u003egoing to smash all its foemen immediately.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe third young man did not sing with them.  He was a radical\u003cbr\u003eagitator; his name was Eugene Silga; he was slim and taut, with\u003cbr\u003eskin the colour of a cigar; and he had had quite enough singing in\u003cbr\u003eCathay County Jail, a month ago.  When the students stopped for\u003cbr\u003ebreath, he protested, in the easy voice of a professional speaker,\u003cbr\u003e'You seem to think it's going to be a cinch to overthrow the\u003cbr\u003eexploiting capitalist class--your own class, remember, you cursed\u003cbr\u003esons of aristocrats.  It's not!  It'll take a lot more than singing\u003cbr\u003eto make Wall Street apologize to the Proletariat and go crawl in a\u003cbr\u003ehole.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Hurray!  Wall Street in a hole!  Lez go dig the hole!' bawled the\u003cbr\u003edriver.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis driver was a tall, wide young man, with wavy hair of red gold,\u003cbr\u003ea Norse god with eyes like the Baltic Sea in summer, and a face\u003cbr\u003ehandsome as a magazine cover and stupid as a domesticated carp.\u003cbr\u003eHis name was Howard Cornplow, and he was an adept in football, in\u003cbr\u003egolf, and in finding reasons why, at any particular recitation\u003cbr\u003ehour, he knew nothing whatever about the epistemology of Plato's\u003cbr\u003eMeno.  He did know a great deal about the crawl stroke, however,\u003cbr\u003ewhich may have been just as well.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHoward Cornplow was a hearty young man, and he loved to argue.\u003cbr\u003eAccelerating a little, occasionally looking away from the road\u003cbr\u003etoward the agitator Silga, who sat in the dimness over beside the\u003cbr\u003eright-hand door, he shouted, 'Oh, rats, Gene!  Don't you think if\u003cbr\u003eall us educated guys gang up on our folks, they'll snap out of\u003cbr\u003etheir fool ex-up-expropriating attitude?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'I do not!'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Now look here.  You take my dad.  Old Fred.  I can argue him down\u003cbr\u003etill he skips out and slams the door.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Howard continued, it was revealed that this 'dad', motor dealer\u003cbr\u003ein the city of Sachem Falls, N.Y., was an acceptable fellow, and\u003cbr\u003ethat he was chronically overcome by his son's eloquence.  Just to\u003cbr\u003eclarify it, Howard gave samples of the eloquence, and during the\u003cbr\u003espirited recital he forgot that he was driving an automobile, and\u003cbr\u003eat sixty-five miles an hour.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe other student, Guy Staybridge, scrawny, big-nosed, spectacled,\u003cbr\u003eeager, wailed, 'Hey, watch what you're doing, will you, young\u003cbr\u003eCornplow?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Don't you worry.  I'm a careful driver,' clucked the Norse god, as\u003cbr\u003ehe happily developed his theme that, in order to be converted to\u003cbr\u003eloving communism, the stuffy, prosperous, middle-class merchants\u003cbr\u003elike Fred Cornplow needed nothing more than friendly tips from such\u003cbr\u003eup-to-date examples of the Youth Movement as Howard Cornplow,\u003cbr\u003eEugene Silga, and Guy Staybridge, with a few explanations about how\u003cbr\u003ethe economic system really worked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe car swayed on an abrupt turning.  Howard kept it snugly to the\u003cbr\u003eright.  But this was an S-curve, and as Howard looked away from the\u003cbr\u003eroad towards Eugene, accelerating a little in his triumphant high\u003cbr\u003espirits, the car, in a hundredth of a second, in a madness of speed\u003cbr\u003ethat had nothing to do with time by the watch, bolted across the\u003cbr\u003editch, bounded on turf, twisted--crushing the three young men\u003cbr\u003ecloser together--half swung around, grazed a birch tree, smashed a\u003cbr\u003efender and a headlight and half the hood, and came up short, while\u003cbr\u003ethe huddle of three were jerked sidewise, then hurled toward the\u003cbr\u003ewindshield.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47068913565936,"sku":"2940013693531","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013693531_p0.jpg?v=1763597297","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013693531","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}