"I do feel rather faint," said Mr. Perry. "I wish Blother would bring the brandy." The ladies left us at this point, and Edward, who was in a mood of harangue, went into this question of food, which counted for so much in the economic problems of Upsidonia. "You see, it must all come down to that in the end," he said. "Agricultural and pastoral pursuits are so much sought after that the over-production of food is the most serious item in the general over-production of the country. The cry of 'back to the towns' is all very well, but people won't live in artificial surroundings if they have once tasted the pleasure and excitement of hard bodily toil; and you can't make them." "Well, you wouldn't like it yourself for long," said Eppstein, "not if you know when you're well off. 'Ow did you get 'ere from the 'Ighlands? Walk? Tell us abaht it." "We were going to tell Howard about my lady's garden," said Edward. "You see, Howard, in the country there is room for everybody, and the young men and young girls can go courting in a natural way, in lanes with briar hedges and nightingales and the moon, and all that sort of thing. They can secure the necessary privacy. But in towns there is so little privacy. It is the one thing in which the rich are really better off than the poor, because they have large houses and gardens of their own." "Which seem to belong more to their servants than to them," I said. "Well, of course, the servants have to be considered. I am not an extremist, and I do not advocate, as some do, that property should carry no disadvantages other than those obviously inherent in it. If the rich, for instance, were allowed to surround themselves with the gracious things of life--space, freedom, flowers, art, leisure for study and self-improvement--without the checks that a wise State has imposed upon the abuse of those things, the incentive to break loose from the bonds of property would be lessened. Don't you agree with me, Herman?" "It's a bore, sometimes, to 'ave to eat too much," Eppstein corroborated him. "Quite so!" said Mr. Perry, awakening suddenly out of a species of trance. "Quite so, Herman! Then why eat too much? I ask you--_why_ eat too much?" "'Cos the State makes you," said Eppstein. "Ah!" said Mr. Perry, wagging his head with an expression of deep wisdom. "But now you're talking politics." He then relapsed into his former air of aloofness.