“All of our journals are humorous. Any paragraph or column in which a pleasing strain of the ludicrous does not appear is blacked out by the censor. It isn’t always very clever, but it has to be as clever as can be reasonably expected for thirty-two and six a week.”
“One pound twelve and sixpence?”
“The rate fixed by the central governing body,” said the other. “Every man on leaving school receives a wage of thirty-two and six a week, and in this way all the old class distinctions have vanished, the yawning spaces between the clever and the foolish, the industrious and the indolent have been bridged. The sum was fixed—this may interest you—because it was found that a narrow majority existed of those earning less than that amount, and the injustice of the change was therefore lessened.”
“Not sure that I quite follow you,” he said politely, “but it’s exceedingly good of you to take so much trouble. I’m not delaying you from your work?”
“So long as I do thirty hours a week, it doesn’t matter when I do them.”
“An ideal existence!”
“Exactly!” cried the man, with triumph. “That’s what we have been aiming at! Just what we have achieved. Nothing short of perfection is good enough for us. If there’s any sensible criticism you can pass upon our present conditions, we shall be ready to consider it.”
“That reminds me!” he exclaimed. “I miss the poor, especially at this time of the year, when I feel generous. But of course it’s all to the good to have altered that. Only where are the children? I should like to see some children.”
“You’ll have to manage without them, unless you can get a special permit from the Minister of Education in Whitehall. In the old days parents were, I believe, allowed to bring up children in almost any manner they thought fit, and some of the results were exceedingly unsatisfactory. Let me see!” He considered for a few moments, detaining the other with one hand; his brow wrinkled with the effort of thought. “Pinner!” he exclaimed; “I rather think Pinner is the nearest. You’ll find about five thousand youngsters in the Infant Barracks there.”
“I can do with less,” he remarked. “What I want is about three or four, nephews and nieces if possible; just enough to play at charades, and musical chairs, and games of some one going out of the room—” The other smiled pityingly. “Going out of the room whilst the rest think of a man alive, and then the person who has been outside comes in and puts questions, and gradually guesses who it is. Surely they still play at it.”