“Horrors! my son. And they would teach us how to live?”

“Not only that, but they cover the streets with rock and steel and then force iron-wheeled cars over the rough surface or harsh-sounding rails until the roar and the clatter make them deaf or drive them insane.”

“Shocking!”

“And when they sleep at night they huddle together under the same quilt, and when they arise and go about their walled dens or out upon the filth-breeding, dust-driven streets they cover themselves with all sorts of coarse material far rougher than our matting on the floor or the material with which we sack our products of the field. Their feet are bound up in close-fitting skins on which are nailed or sewn stiff leather soles, and their heads are weighted down with all manner of hot, ill-shaped and wind-catching hats or other gear.”

“And is such their clothing?”

“Yes. And it is fashioned, mostly, so as to expose as much as possible the person’s form, or its lines, and it may be worn, or donned, in piecemeal. It is only to be commended for street sweeping or fly baiting. And what a mixture; and so untidy and so uncomfortable! It makes me creep all over when I think of it, and of how they swelter on a hot day and freeze on a cold one.”

“What barbarians!”

“And their food! Well, I can best impress you with that by saying that the cooks and doctors constitute a large percentage of the population, and that the mortality resulting from the strife carried on between the two classes, the one tearing down and the other building up, is hardly less than frightful. The science of both is a constant assault upon the stomach, with the odds so overwhelmingly in favour of the cooks that life is reduced to an average period of only some thirty-three years. And the taste, and the smell! Well, either is farthest removed from nature’s storehouse, and that is enough said, I warrant.”

“And that is where you have been seeking knowledge all this time?”

“Yes; I spent only four of the five years at college, learning how to cheat. Yes, cheat; that is the thing. First man, then nature. The former, because it is easy; the latter, because it is progress. And if the fructifications of a scientist, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or a preacher, or a merchant, do not meet with your ideas of success, then try the fortunes of a statesman or a warrior; and what you cannot get by diplomacy, force with powder and shot.”