e fellahs still yoke their wives to their ploughs?"

"A fellah will sit all night long outside his hut and gaze up at the
stars and give himself time to dream. And a merchant prince in Vienna
will dictate business letters in his automobile as he's driving to the
theatre, and write telegrams as he sits in the stalls. One fine day
he'll be sitting in his private box with a telephone at one ear and
listening to the opera with the other. That's what the miracles of
science are doing for us. Awe-inspiring, isn't it?"

"And you talk like that--a man that's helped to harness the Nile, and
has built railways through the desert?"

Peer shrugged his shoulders, and offered the other a cigar from his
case. A waiter appeared with coffee.

"To help mankind to make quicker progress--is that nothing?"

"Lord! What I'd like to know is, where mankind are making for, that
they're in such a hurry."

"That the Nile Barrage has doubled the production of corn in
Egypt--created the possibilities of life for millions of human
beings--is that nothing?"

"My good fellow, do you really think there aren't enough fools on this
earth already? Have we too little wailing and misery and discontent and
class-hatred as it is? Why must we go about to double it?"

"But hang it all, man--what about European culture? Surely you felt
yourself a sort of missionary of civilisation, where you have been."

"The spread of European civilisation in the East simply means that half
a dozen big financiers in London or Paris take a fancy to a certain
strip of Africa or Asia. They press a button, and out come all the
ministers and generals and missionaries and engineers with a bow: At
your service, gentlemen!

"Culture! One wheel begets ten new ones. Brr-rrr! And the ten again
another hundred. Brr-rr-rrr--more speed, more competition--and all for
what? For culture? No, my friend, for money. Missionary! I tell you, as
long as Western Europe with all its wonders of modern science and its
Christianity and its political reforms hasn't turned out a better type
of humanity than the mean ruck of men we have now--we'd do best to
stay at home and hold our counfounded jaw. Here's ourselves!" and Peer
emptied his glass.

This was a sad hearing for poor Langberg. For he had been used to
comfort himself in his daily round with the thought that even he, in his
modest sphere, was doing his share in the great work of civilising the
world.

At last he leaned back, watching