rents, profits, and all the calculations based on them no more have any
place in human affairs. In your day everybody, besides his account with
the state, was involved in a network of accounts with all about him. Even
the humblest wage-earner was on the books of half a dozen tradesmen,
while a man of substance might be down in scores or hundreds, and this
without speaking of men not engaged in commerce. A fairly nimble dollar
had to be set down so many times in so many places, as it went from hand
to hand, that we calculate in about five years it must have cost itself
in ink, paper, pens, and clerk hire, let alone fret and worry. All these
forms of private and business accounts have now been done away with.
Nobody owes anybody, or is owed by anybody, or has any contract with
anybody, or any account of any sort with anybody, but is simply beholden
to everybody for such kindly regard as his virtues may attract."




CHAPTER V.

I EXPERIENCE A NEW SENSATION.

"Doctor," said I as we came out of the bank, "I have a most extraordinary
feeling."

"What sort of a feeling?"

"It is a sensation which I never had anything like before," I said, "and
never expected to have. I feel as if I wanted to go to work. Yes, Julian
West, millionaire, loafer by profession, who never did anything useful in
his life and never wanted to, finds himself seized with an overmastering