“True,” the minister meekly admitted. “But somehow there is a protest in us somewhere against these arbitrary distinctions--something that questions whether they are altogether right. We know that they must be, and always have been, and always will be, and yet--well, I will confess it--I never feel at peace when I face them.” “Oh,” said the banker, “if you come to the question of right and wrong, that is another matter. I don’t say it’s right. I’m not discussing that question; though I’m certainly not proposing to level the fences; I should be the last to take my own down. I say simply that you are no more likely to meet a working-man in American society than you are to meet a colored man. Now you can judge,” he ended, turning directly to the Altrurian, “how much we honor labor. And I hope I have indirectly satisfied your curiosity as to the social status of the working-man among us.” We were all silent. Perhaps the others were occupied like myself in trying to recall some instance of a working-man whom they had met in society, and perhaps we said nothing because we all failed. The Altrurian spoke at last. “You have been so very full and explicit that I feel as if it were almost unseemly to press any further inquiry; but I should very much like to know how your working-men bear this social exclusion.” “I’m sure I can’t say,” returned the banker. “A man does not care much to get into society until he has something to eat, and how to get that is always the first question with the working-man.” “But you wouldn’t like it yourself?” “No, certainly, I shouldn’t like it myself. I shouldn’t complain of not being asked to people’s houses, and the working-men don’t; you can’t do that; but I should feel it an incalculable loss. We may laugh at the emptiness of society, or pretend to be sick of it, but there is no doubt that society is the flower of civilization, and to be shut out from it is to be denied the best privilege of a civilized man. There are society women--we have all met them--whose graciousness and refinement of presence are something of incomparable value; it is more than a liberal education to have been admitted to it, but it is as inaccessible to the working-man as--what shall I say? The thing is too grotesquely impossible for any sort of comparison. Merely to conceive of its possibility is something that passes a joke; it is a kind of offence.” Again we were silent.