ing very rapidly, continued:

'If you go down town, you will see half a dozen drapers' shops within a
stone's-throw of each other--often even next door to each other--all
selling the same things. You can't possibly think that all those shops
are really necessary? You know that one of them would serve the
purpose for which they are all intended--to store and serve as a centre
for the distribution of the things that are made by work. If you will
admit that five out of the six shops are not really necessary, you must
also admit that the men who built them, and the salesmen and women or
other assistants engaged in them, and the men who design and write and
print their advertisements are all doing unnecessary work; all really
wasting their time and labour, time and labour that might be employed
in helping to produce these things that we are at present short of.
You must admit that none of these people are engaged in producing
either the necessaries of life or the benefits of civilization. They
buy them, and sell them, and handle them, and haggle over, them, and
display them, in the plate glass windows of "Stores" and "Emporiums"
and make profit out of them, and use them, but these people themselves
produce nothing that is necessary to life or happiness, and the things
that some of them do produce are only necessary to the present imbecile
system.'

'What the 'ell sort of a bloody system do you think we ought to 'ave,
then?' interrupted the man on the pail.

'Yes: you're very good at finding fault,' sneered Slyme, 'but why don't
you tell us 'ow it's all going to be put right?'

'Well, that's not what we're talking about now, is it?' replied Owen.
'At present we're only trying to find out how it is that there is not
sufficient produced for everyone to have enough of the things that are
made by work. Although most of the people in number three work very
hard, they produce Nothing.'

'This is a lot of bloody rot!' exclaimed Crass, impatiently.

'Even if there is more shops than what's actually necessary,' cried
Harlow, 'it all helps people to get a livin'! If half of 'em was shut
up, it would just mean that all them what works there would be out of a
job. Live and let live, I say: all these things makes work.'

''Ear, 'ear,' shouted the man behind the moat.

'Yes, I know it makes "work",' replied Owen, 'but we can't live on mere
"work", you know. To live in comfort we need a sufficiency of the
things that can be