A growing anger blended into Julie's feeling of disgust. "I don't see that it's anything to be proud of," she said coldly.
Stan's laugh was a derisive bray. "She talks just like a first timer, doesn't she?" The man in front of them nodded knowingly, again sharing with Stan the common bond of experience.
"The next thing you know," Stan jeered kiddingly, "she'll be preaching to us like one of those crackpot reformers."
The revulsion that Julie felt must have been clearly evident now. Stan smiled fondly and put his arm around her shoulder. "I'm only kidding, honey," he half-apologized.
"What's so wrong about the reformers?" Julie demanded, angrily shrugging away his arm. "Why shouldn't men be given another chance? What...?"
"Men?" The man with the moon face burst into loud laughter. "Wait'll you see these bums, kid! They're not men, they're things!"
"He's right, honey," Stan said. "These joes don't have any homes or jobs or families or friends. They don't even have ID cards."
"No ID cards?" That was impossible! But Julie was beginning to learn that many impossible things could happen in a world that most citizens knew nothing about. "Then how can they be expected to get jobs? You've got to have an ID card in order to be assigned...."
"That's the general idea, lady," someone nearby said in a loud voice. Several people laughed. "You don't wanna put the court out of business, do ya?"
Julie's lips trembled as she opened her mouth to voice the word that shouted emphatically within her: yes! yes!