violation of the laws of life and its consequences. "I am glad," he went
on, "that your business men and professional men are beginning to realize
the folly and wickedness of overwork. Shall I find some of your other
weary workers here, too?"

"What other weary workers?" I asked in turn, for I imagined I had gone
over pretty much the whole list.

"Why," said the Altrurian, "your mechanics and day laborers, your
iron-moulders and glass-blowers, your miners and farmers, your printers
and mill-operatives, your trainmen and quarry-hands. Or do they prefer to
go to resorts of their own?"



III

It was not easy to make sure of such innocence as prompted this inquiry of
my Altrurian friend. The doubt whether he could really be in earnest was
something that I had already felt; and it was destined to beset me, as it
did now, again and again. My first thought was that, of course, he was
trying a bit of cheap irony on me, a mixture of the feeble sarcasm and
false sentiment that makes us smile when we find it in the philippics of
the industrial agitators. For a moment I did not know but I had fallen
victim to a walking delegate on his vacation, who was employing his summer
leisure in going about the country in the guise of a traveler from
Altruria, and foisting himself upon people who would have had nothing to
do with him in his real character. But in another moment I perceived that
this was impossible. I could not suppose that the friend who had
introduced him to me would be capable of seconding so poor a joke, and,