“I quite conceive you,” Cyril replied. “But you present to our people, who are offended by it, the spectacle of dependence upon hireling service for your daily comfort and convenience.”
“But, my dear sir,” Mr. Thrall returned, “don't we pay for it? Do our servants object to rendering us this service?”
“That has nothing to do with the case; or, rather, it makes it worse. The fact that your servants do not object shows how completely they are depraved by usage. We should not object if they served you from affection, and if you repaid them in kindness; but the fact that you think you have made them a due return by giving them money shows how far from the right ideal in such a matter the whole capitalistic world is.”
Here, to my great delight, Aristides spoke up:
“If the American practice were half as depraving as it ought logically to be in their conditions, their social system would drop to pieces. It was always astonishing to me that a people with their facilities for evil, their difficulties for good, should remain so kind and just and pure.”
“That is what I understood from your letters to me, my dear Aristides. I am willing to leave the general argument for the present. But I should like to ask Mr. Thrall a question, and I hope it won't be offensive.”
Mr. Thrall smiled. “At any rate I promise not to be offended.”
“You are a very rich man?”
“Much richer than I would like to be.”
“How rich?”