I took no exception to this, and he began again. "Society, in our young days, was in a state of auto-intoxication. It generated its own poisons, and absorbed them in peaceful, slow suicide. To think!--it seems impossible now--to think of allowing anybody to sell bad food!" "That wasn't the only bad thing they sold," I suggested. "No; unfortunately. Why, look here--" Owen slid a glass panel in the wall and took out a book. "That's clever," I remarked approvingly. "Bookcases built in!" "Yes, they are everywhere now," said Nellie. "Books--a few of them--are common human necessities. Every home, every room almost, has these little dust-tight, insect-proof wall cases. Concrete construction has helped very much in all such matters." Owen had found his place, and now poured upon me a concentrated list of the adulterated materials deteriorating the world in that period so slightingly referred to as "my day." I noticed with gratitude that Owen said "When we were young!" "You never were sure of getting _anything_ pure," he said scornfully, "no matter what you paid for it. How we submitted to such rank outrage for so long I cannot imagine! This was taken up very definitely some twenty years ago, by the women mostly." "Aha--'when the women woke up!'" I cried. "Yes, just that. It is true that their being mostly mere housewives and seamstresses was a handicap in some ways; but it was a direct advantage in others. They were almost all consumers, you see, not producers. They were not so much influenced by considerations of the profits of the manufacturer as they were by the direct loss to their own pockets and health. Yes," he smiled reminiscently, "there were some pretty warm years while this thing was thrashed out. One of the most successful lines of attack was in the New Food system, though." "I _will_ talk!" cried Hallie. "Here I've inveigled Uncle John up here--and--and fed him to repletion; and have him completely at my mercy, and then you people butt in and do all the talking!" "Go it, little sister--you're dead right!" agreed Jerrold. "You see. Uncle, it's one thing to restrain and prevent and punish--and another thing to substitute improvements." "Kindergarten methods?" I ventured. "Yes, exactly. As women had learned this in handling children, they began to apply it to grown people--the same children, only a little older. Ever so many people had been talking and writing about this food business, and finally some of them got together and really started it." "One of these co-operative schemes?" I was beginning, but the women looked at me with such pitying contempt that I promptly withdrew the suggestion.