The less you sell, the harder are the times? {Dowsett} Just so. {Sakari} Then if the people are thrifty, and buy less, times will be harder? {Dowsett} (_Perplexed._) Er--it would seem so. {Sakari} Then it would seem that the present bad times are due to the fact that the people are thrifty, rather than not thrifty? (_Dowsett is nonplussed, and Mrs. Dowsett throws up her hands in despair._) {Mrs. Dowsett} (_Turning to Knox._) Perhaps you can explain to us, Mr. Knox, the reason for this terrible condition of affairs. (_Starkweather closes note-book on finger and listens._) (_Knox smiles, but does not speak._) {Dolores Ortega} Please do, Mr. Knox. I am so dreadfully anxious to know why living is so high now. Only this morning I understand meat went up again. (_Knox hesitates and looks questioningly at Margaret._) {Hubbard} I am sure Mr. Knox can shed new light on this perplexing problem. {Chalmers} Surely you, the whirlwind of oratorical swords in the House, are not timid here--among friends. {Knox} (_Sparring._) I had no idea that questions of such nature were topics of conversation at affairs like this. {Starkweather} (_Abruptly and imperatively._) What causes the high prices? {Knox} (_Equally abrupt and just as positive as the other was imperative._) _Theft_! (_It is a sort of a bombshell he has exploded, but they receive it politely and smilingly, even though it has shaken them up._) {Dolores Ortega} What a romantic explanation. I suppose everybody who has anything has stolen it. {Knox} Not quite, but almost quite. Take motorcars, for example. This year five hundred million dollars has been spent for motor-cars. It required men toiling in the mines and foundries, women sewing their eyes out in sweat-shops, shop girls slaving for four and five dollars a week, little children working in the factories and cotton-mills--all these it required to produce those five hundred millions spent this year in motor-cars. And all this has been stolen from those who did the work. {Mrs. Starkweather} I always knew those motor-cars were to blame for terrible things. {Dolores Ortega} But Mr. Knox, I have a motor-car. {Knox} Somebody's labor made that car. Was it yours? {Dolores Ortega} Mercy, no! I bought it---- and paid for it. {Knox} Then did you labor at producing something else, and exchange the fruits of that labor for the motor-car? (_A pause._) You do not answer. Then I am to understand that you have a motor-car which was made by somebody else's labor and for which you gave no labor of your own. This I call theft. You call it property. Yet it is theft. {Starkweather} (_Interrupting Dolores Ortega who was just about to speak._) But surely you have intelligence to see the question in larger ways than stolen motor-cars. I am a man of affairs. I don't steal motor-cars. {Knox} (_Smiling._) Not concrete little motor-cars, no. You do things on a large scale. {Starkweather} Steal? {Knox}