e same for
civilization as if we shrank to the size of Boston."

"You will have to explain a little, Howadji," we said, "if you expect us
to understand your very interesting position."

"Why, you know," he answered, with easy superiority, "that now our
great influx is of opulent strangers who have made a good deal of money,
and of destitute strangers willing to help them live on it. The last we
needn't take account of; they are common to all cities in all ages; but
the first are as new as any phenomenon can be in a world of such
tiresome tautologies as ours. They come up from our industrial
provinces, eager to squander their wealth in the commercial metropolis;
they throw down their purses as the heroes of old threw down their
gantlets for a gage of battle, and they challenge the local champions of
extortion to take them up. It is said that they do not want a seasonable
or a beautiful thing; they want a costly thing. If, for instance, they
are offered a house or an apartment at a rental of ten or fifteen
thousand, they will not have it; they require a rental of fifteen or
twenty thousand, so that it may be known, 'back home,' that they are
spending that much for rent in New York, and the provincial imagination
taxed to proportion the cost of their living otherwise to such a sum.
You may say that it is rather splendid, but you cannot deny that it is
also stupid."

"Stupid, no; but barbaric, yes," we formulated the case. "It is
splendid, as barbaric pearls and gold are splendid."

"But you must allow that nothing could be more mischievous. When next we
go with our modest incomes against these landlords, they suppose that we
too want rentals of fifteen thousand, whereas we would easily be
satisfied with one of fifteen hundred or a thousand. The poor fellows'
fancy is crazed by those prodigals, and we must all suffer for their
madness. The extravagance of the new-comers does not affect the price of
provisions so much, or of clothes; the whole population demands food and
raiment within the general means, however much it must exceed its means
in the cost of shelter. The spendthrifts cannot set the pace for such
expenditures, no matter how much they lavish on their backs and--"

"Forbear!" we cried. "Turning from the danger we have saved you from,
you will say, we suppose, that New York would be the cheapest of the
great cities if it were not for the cost of shelter."

"Something like that," he assented.

"But as we un