tion diet--pushed back a thousand years into outlived
ages. You are not permitted to read anything but what was written
for the savages who took part in the migration of the peoples. You
hear of nothing but what will never happen in heaven; and what
actually does happen on the earth is kept hidden from you. You are
torn out of your surroundings, reduced from your own class, put
beneath those who are really beneath yourself. Then you get a
sense of living in the bronze age. You come to feel as if you were
dressed in skins, as if you were living in a cave and eating out
of a trough--ugh!

MR. X. But there is reason back of all that. One who acts as if he
belonged to the bronze age might surely be expected to don the
proper costume.

MR. Y. [Irately] Yes, you sneer! You who have behaved like a man
from the stone age--and who are permitted to live in the golden
age.

MR. X. [Sharply, watching him closely] What do you mean with that
last expression--the golden age?

MR. Y. [With a poorly suppressed snarl] Nothing at all.

MR. X. Now you lie--because you are too much of a coward to say
all you think.

MR. Y. Am I a coward? You think so? But I was no coward when I
dared to show myself around here, where I had had to suffer as I
did.--But can you tell what makes one suffer most while in there?--
It is that the others are not in there too!

MR. X. What others?

MR. Y. Those that go unpunished.

MR. X. Are you thinking of me?

MR. Y. I am.

MR. X. But I have committed no crime.

MR. Y. Oh, haven't you?

MR. X. No, a misfortune is no crime.

MR. Y. So, it's a misfortune to commit murder?

MR. X. I have not committed murder.

MR. Y. Is it not murder to kill a person?

MR. X. Not always. The law speaks of murder, manslaughter, killing
in self-defence--and it makes a distinction between intentional
and unintentional killing. However--now you really frighten me,
for it's becoming plain to me that you belong to the most
dangerous of all human groups--that of the stupid.

MR. Y. So you imagine that I am stupid? Well, listen--would you
like me to show you how clever I am?

MR. X. Come on!

MR. Y. I think you'll have to admit that there is both logic and
wisdom in the argument I'm now going to give you. You have
suffered a misfortune which might have brought you two years at
hard labor. You have completely escaped the disgrace of being
punished. And here you see before you a man--who has also suffered
a misf