ctly what it means.'

Mutimer became patronising, quite without intending it.

'Propaganda? Oh, that's the spreading our ideas, you know; printing
paper, giving lectures, hiring places of meeting, and so on. That's what
Propaganda means.'

'Thank you,' said Adela musingly. Then she continued,--

'And the workmen only have the advantage, at present, of the low rents
and cheap food?'

'Oh, a good deal more. To begin with, they're housed like human beings,
and not like animals. Some day you shall see the kind of places the
people live in, in London and other big towns. You won't believe your
eyes. Then they have shorter hours of work; they're not treated like
omnibus horses, calculating just how much can be got out of them without
killing them before a reasonable time. Then they're sure of their work
as long as they keep honest and don't break any of our rules; that's no
slight thing, I can tell you. Why, on the ordinary system a man may find
himself and his family without food any week end. Then there's a good
school for the children; they pay threepence a week for each child.
Then there's the reading-room and library, and the lectures, and the
recreation-grounds. You just come over the place with me some day, and
talk with the women, and see if they don't think they're well off.'

Adela looked him in the face.

'And it is you they have to thank for all this?'

'Well, I don't want any credit for it,' Mutimer replied, waving his
hand. 'What would you think of me if I worked them like niggers and just
enjoyed myself on the profits? That's what the capitalists do.'

'I think you are doing more than most men would. There is only one
thing.'

She dropped her voice.

'What's that, Adela?'

'I'll speak of it some other time.'

'I know what you mean. You're sorry I've got no religion. Ay, but I
have! There's my religion, down there in New Wanley. I'm saving men and
women and children from hunger and cold and the lives of brute beasts. I
teach them to live honestly and soberly. There's no public-house in New
Wanley, and there won't be.' (It just flashed across Adela's mind that
Mutimer drank wine himself.) 'There's no bad language if I can help it.
The children 'll be brought up to respect the human nature that's in
them, to honour their parents, and act justly and kindly to all they
have dealings with. Isn't there a good deal of religion in that, Adela?'

'Yes, but not all. Not the most important part'

'Well,