oined in and he did not have to ask.

"Burnett, I don't quite understand why I am here but aren't you taking
a chance with me?"

"Not at all. I've followed your reactions since your first visit to
the library. Others here have also--when you were completely unaware
of being observed. The gradual shift in viewpoint is familiar to us.
We've all been through it. The really important point is that you no
longer like the kind of world into which you were born."

"That's true, but no one can change it."

"We _are_ changing it," said a thin-faced young woman. "I work in a
servo lab and--."

"Miss Wright, time enough for that later," interrupted Burnett. "What
we must know now, Mr. Hart, is how much you're willing to do for your
new-found convictions? It will be more work than you've ever dreamed
possible."

He felt as exhilarated as he did in the months after High Holy Day.
"I'm down to under ten hours labor a week. I'd do anything for your
group if I could get more work."

Burnett gave him a hearty handshake of congratulation ... but was
frowning as he did so. "You're doing the right thing--for the wrong
reason. Every member of this group could tell you why. Miss Wright,
since you feel like talking, explain the matter."

"Certainly. Mr. Hart, we are engaged in an activity of so-called
subversion for a positive reason, not merely to avoid insufficient
work load. Your reason shows you are still being moved by the values
that you despise. We _want_ to cut the work-production load on people.
We want them to _face_ the problem of leisure, not flee it."

"There's a heart-warming paradox here," Burnett explained. "Every
excess eventually undermines itself. Everybody in the movement starts
by wanting to act for their beliefs because work appears so attractive
for its own sake. I was that way, too, until I studied the dead art
of philosophy."

"Well--" Hart sat down, deeply troubled. "Look, I deplore destroying
equipment that is still perfectly useful as much as any of you do. But
there _is_ a problem. If the destruction were stopped there would be
so much leisure people would rot from boredom."

* * * * *

Burnett pounced eagerly on the argument. "Instead they're rotting from
artificial work. Boredom is a temporary, if recurring phenomenon of
living, not a permanent one. If most men face the difficulty of empty
time long enough they find new problems with which to fill that time.
That's