ll me when you want to get down and I'll stop
for you. Let's get on."

So we got under way again; and I asked if children generally waited on
people in the markets. "Often enough," said he, "when it isn't a matter
of dealing with heavy weights, but by no means always. The children like
to amuse themselves with it, and it is good for them, because they handle
a lot of diverse wares and get to learn about them, how they are made,
and where they come from, and so on. Besides, it is such very easy work
that anybody can do it. It is said that in the early days of our epoch
there were a good many people who were hereditarily afflicted with a
disease called Idleness, because they were the direct descendants of
those who in the bad times used to force other people to work for
them--the people, you know, who are called slave-holders or employers of
labour in the history books. Well, these Idleness-stricken people used
to serve booths _all_ their time, because they were fit for so little.
Indeed, I believe that at one time they were actually _compelled_ to do
some such work, because they, especially the women, got so ugly and
produced such ugly children if their disease was not treated sharply,
that the neighbours couldn't stand it. However, I'm happy to say that
all that is gone by now; the disease is either extinct, or exists in such
a mild form that a short course of aperient medicine carries it off. It
is sometimes called the Blue-devils now, or the Mulleygrubs. Queer
names, ain't they?"

"Yes," said I, pondering much. But the old man broke in:

"Yes, all that is true, neighbour; and I have seen some of those poor
women grown old. But my father used to know some of them when they were
young; and he said that they were as little like young women as might be:
they had hands like bunches of skewers, and wretched little arms like
sticks; and waists like hour-glasses, and thin lips and peaked noses and
pale cheeks; and they were always pretending to be offended at anything
you said or did to them. No wonder they bore ugly children, for no one
except men like them could be in love with them--poor things!"

He stopped, and seemed to be musing on his past life, and then said:

"And do you know, neighbours, that once on a time people were still
anxious about that disease of Idleness: at one time we gave ourselves a
great deal of trouble in trying to cure people of it. Have you not read
any of the medical books on the