18. I do not want to bore you with a Socialist speech. I only want to give you an idea of the trap into which Mr. Douglas van Tuiver had been drawn. He stood there, rigidly aloof while the speaker went on to explain the basic facts of wealth-production in modern society. She quoted from Kropotkin: “‘Fields, Factories and Work-shops,’ on sale at this meeting for a quarter!”--showing how by modern intensive farming--no matter of theory, but methods which were in commercial use in hundreds of places--it would be possible to feed the entire population of the globe from the soil of the British Isles alone. She showed by the bulletins of the United States Government how the machine process had increased the productive power of the individual labourer ten, twenty, a hundred fold. So vast was man’s power of producing wealth today, and yet the labourer lived in dire want just as in the days of crude hand-industry! So she came back to her millionaire, upon whom this evil rested. He was the master of the machine for whose profit the labourer had to produce. He could only employ the labourer to produce what could be sold at a profit; and so the stream of prosperity was choked at its source. “It is you, Mr. Millionaire, who are to blame for poverty; it is because so many millions of dollars must be paid to you in profits that so many millions of men must live in want. In other words, precisely as I declared at the outset, it is your playing tennis which is responsible for the lunatics chasing the balls!” I wish that I might give some sense of the speaker’s mastery of this situation, the extent to which she had communicated her good-humour to the crowd. You heard ripple after ripple of laughter, you saw everywhere about you eager faces, following every turn of the argument. No one could resist the contagion of interest--save only the American millionaire! He stood impassive, never once smiling, never once betraying a trace of feeling. Venturing to watch him more closely, however, I could see the stern lines deepening about his mouth, and his long, lean face growing more set. The speaker had outlined the remedy--a change from the system of production for profit to one of production for use. She went on to explain how the change was coming; the lunatic classes were beginning to doubt the divine nature of the rules of the asylum, and they were preparing to mutiny, and take possession of the place. And here I saw that Sylvia’s husband had reached his limit. He turned to her: “Haven’t you had enough of this?” “Why, no,” she began. “If you don’t mind--” “I do mind very much,” he said, abruptly. “I think you are committing a breach of taste to stay here, and I would be greatly obliged if you would leave.” And without really waiting for Sylvia’s reply, he directed, “Back out of here, Ferris.”