the matter, for if she wishes to make an effect or gain a point she has a
magnanimity that stops at nothing short of self-devotion. "I know it,"
she said. "You are perfectly right; but here we are, and what are we to
do? What do you do in Altruria, I should like to know?"

I said that in Altruria we all worked, and that personal service was
honored among us like medical attendance in America; I did not know what
other comparison to make; but I said that any one in health would think
it as unwholesome and as immoral to let another serve him as to let a
doctor physic him. At this Mrs. Makely and her husband laughed so that I
found myself unable to go on for some moments, till Mrs. Makely, with a
final shriek, shouted to him: "Dick, do stop, or I shall die! Excuse me,
Mr. Homos, but you are so deliciously funny, and I know you're just
joking. You _won't_ mind my laughing? Do go on."

I tried to give her some notion as to how we manage, in our common life,
which we have simplified so much beyond anything that this barbarous
people dream of; and she grew a little soberer as I went on, and seemed
at least to believe that I was not, as her husband said, stuffing them;
but she ended, as they always do here, by saying that it might be all
very well in Altruria, but it would never do in America, and that it was
contrary to human nature to have so many things done in common. "Now,
I'll tell you," she said. "After we broke up housekeeping in Thirty-third
Street, we stored our furniture--"

"Excuse me," I said. "How--stored?"

"Oh, I dare say you never store your furniture in Altruria. But here we
have hundreds of storage warehouses of all sorts and sizes, packed with
furniture that people put into them when they go to Europe, or get sick