“Slavery!” he said.
“Slavery.”
“You don’t mean to say that human beings are chattels.”
“Worse. That is what I want you to know, what I want you to see. I know you do not know. They will keep things from you, they will take you presently to a Pleasure City. But you have noticed men and women and children in pale blue canvas, with thin yellow faces and dull eyes?”
“Everywhere.”
“Speaking a horrible dialect, coarse and weak.”
“I have heard it.”
“They are the slaves—your slaves. They are the slaves of the Labour Company you own.”
“The Labour Company! In some way—that is familiar. Ah! now I remember. I saw it when I was wandering about the city, after the lights returned, great fronts of buildings coloured pale blue. Do you really mean—?”
“Yes. How can I explain it to you? Of course the blue uniform struck you. Nearly a third of our people wear it—more assume it now every day. This Labour Company has grown imperceptibly.”