elder Aunt
Tabitha had christened her dachshund bitch Bella. I cut myself off from
the family after that. Oh, I turned over a new leaf, with not a family
name on it. Couldn't stand Bella amongst the rest."

"You must have strained most of the gnats out of your drink, Argyle,"
said Lilly, laughing.

"Assiduously! Assiduously! I can't stand these little vermin. Oh, I
am quite indifferent about swallowing a camel or two--or even a whole
string of dromedaries. How charmingly Eastern that sounds! But gnats!
Not for anything in the world would I swallow one."

"You're a bit of a SOCIALIST though, aren't you?" persisted Levison, now
turning to Lilly.

"No," said Lilly. "I was."

"And am no more," said Argyle sarcastically. "My dear fellow, the only
hope of salvation for the world lies in the re-institution of slavery."

"What kind of slavery?" asked Levison.

"Slavery! SLAVERY! When I say SLAVERY I don't mean any of your damned
modern reform cant. I mean solid sound slavery on which the Greek and
the Roman world rested. FAR finer worlds than ours, my dear chap! Oh
FAR finer! And can't be done without slavery. Simply can't be done.--Oh,
they'll all come to realise it, when they've had a bit more of this
democratic washer-women business."

Levison was laughing, with a slight sneer down his nose. "Anyhow,
there's no immediate danger--or hope, if you prefer it--of the
re-instituting of classic slavery," he said.

"Unfortunately no. We are all such fools," said Argyle.

"Besides," said Levison, "who would you make slaves of?"

"Everybody, my dear chap: beginning with the idealists and the
theorising Jews, and after them your nicely-bred gentlemen, and then
perhaps, your profiteers and Rothschilds, and ALL politicians, and
ending up with the proletariat," said Argyle.

"Then who would be the masters?--the professional classes, doctors and
lawyers and so on?"

"What? Masters. They would be the sewerage slaves, as being those who
had made most smells." There was a moment's silence.

"The only fault I have to find with your system," said Levison, rather
acidly, "is that there would be only one master, and everybody else
slaves."

"Do you call that a fault? What do you want with more than one
master? Are you asking for several?--Well, perhaps there's cunning in
THAT.--Cunning devils, cunning devils, these theorising slaves--" And
Argyle pushed his face with a devilish leer into Aaron's face. "Cunning
devils!" he rei