He ceased this operation as I approached and was about to step aside. But I paused and smiled at him, much, I fear, as one smiles at a dog of unknown disposition, for I could hardly feel that this ungainly creature was exactly human. He smiled back and stood waiting. "Perhaps, I stammered," you will tell me about your system of eating; it seems very interesting." "I eat thirty-eight," he grinned, "pretty good, yes? I am twenty-five years old and not so tall either." I eyed him up--my eyes came just to the top button of his jacket. "I began thirty," continued the workman, "I came up one almost every year, one year I came up two at once. Pretty good, yes? One more to come." "What then?" I asked. The big fellow smiled with a childish pride, and doubling up his arm, as huge as an average man's thigh, he patted his biceps. "I get it all right. I pass examination, no flaws in me, never been to hospital, not one day. Yes, I get it." "Get what?" "Paternity," said the man in a lower voice, as he glanced about to see if any of his fellows was listening. "Paternity, you know? Women!" I thought of many questions but feared to ask them. The worker waited for some men to pass, then he bent over me, grinning sardonically. "Did you see them? You have seen women, yes?" "Yes," I ventured, "I have seen women." "Pretty good, beautiful, yes?" "Yes," I stammered, "they are very beautiful." But I was getting nervous and moved away. The workman, hesitating a little, then followed at my side. "But tell me," I said, "about these calories. What did you do to get the big meals? Why do some get more to eat than others?" "Better man," he replied without hesitation. "But what makes a better man?" "You don't know; of course, you are an intellectual and don't work. But we work hard. The harder we work the more we eat. I load aluminum pigs on the elevator. One pig is two calories, nineteen hundred pigs a day, pretty good, yes? All kind of work has its calories, so many for each thing to do. "More work, more food it takes to do it. They say all is alike, that no one can get fat. But all work calories are not alike because some men get fatter than others. I don't get fat; my work is hard. I ought to get two and a half calories for each pig I load. Still I do not get thin, but I do not play hard in gymnasium, see? Those lathe men, they got it too easy and they play hard in gymnasium. I don't care if you do report. I got it mad at them; they got it too easy. One got paternity last year already, and he is not as good a man as I am. I could throw him over my shoulder in wrestling. Do you not think they get it too easy?" "Do the men like this system," I asked; "the measuring of food by the amount of work one does? Do any of them talk about it and demand that all be fed alike?"