"Then you are always ready to relieve a rich man of his wealth, I suppose?" "There are quite a large number of people amongst us who are anxious to do so." "My dear Howard, what a happy state of things! Your country must be a Utopia. Do you see that man over there? That is John De Montmorency, the popular actor-manager." He pointed to a very seedy-looking unkempt man who, however, held his head high, and gazed around him as he walked for admiring looks, which he got in plenty, especially from the young girls. "They say," said Perry, "that his dresser once pressed a crease into the trousers in which he was to play a lord, out of revenge for some slight, and he went on to the stage in them without noticing. It took him a long time to recover from the blow." "Am I to believe," I asked when Mr. De Montmorency had passed us, "that in Upsidonia the chief things that are desired are, as you say, high character and knowledge and poverty?" "There can be no difficulty in believing that, can there? Those are the best things in life, and everyone naturally desires the best things. Well, of course, poverty in itself isn't one of the best things; it is only a means to an end. Still, we are none of us perfect, and I don't deny that there are many who desire poverty for its own sake. I am interested to learn that among you there is not the fierce race for it that we have here." "Why should anybody desire it for itself?" I asked. "My dear fellow, if you had seen as much of the grinding bitterness of wealth as I have," he said, "you would not ask that question. To be at the mercy of your possessions, never to be free from the deadening weight of idleness, never----" "But surely," I interrupted, "your rich people can amuse themselves. They needn't be idle. Don't they play games, for instance?" "Yes, the young do. We make them. But how terrible to _have_ to kill time with cricket and golf and lawn-tennis, and when the game is finished to feel that nothing has been done to further the good of mankind!" "Why do you make them play, then?" "To keep them in health. We have the Upsidonian race to think of. We can't afford to deteriorate bodily as a nation." "And do you mean to say that the rich and healthy young man really dislikes exercising his body and amusing his mind by playing games, simply because nothing comes of it?" "Not, perhaps, when he is quite young. But to look forward to a life of it--! Besides, he can seldom afford to do even that for long." "Can't afford it?" "No. It isn't expensive enough. He has to set about his business of spending money, sometimes--if his parents are very rich--at an early age, and the desire for healthy exercise soon leaves him. Why, after a day of idleness it is sometimes as much as he can do to drag himself to bed, and then very often he can't sleep."