early understand," said Edith. "Do you mean that you
permitted people to do things for you which you despised them for
doing, or that you accepted services from them which you would have
been unwilling to render them? You can't surely mean that, Mr. West?"

I was obliged to tell her that the fact was just as she had stated. Dr.
Leete, however, came to my relief.

"To understand why Edith is surprised," he said, "you must know that
nowadays it is an axiom of ethics that to accept a service from another
which we would be unwilling to return in kind, if need were, is like
borrowing with the intention of not repaying, while to enforce such a
service by taking advantage of the poverty or necessity of a person
would be an outrage like forcible robbery. It is the worst thing about
any system which divides men, or allows them to be divided, into
classes and castes, that it weakens the sense of a common humanity.
Unequal distribution of wealth, and, still more effectually, unequal
opportunities of education and culture, divided society in your day
into classes which in many respects regarded each other as distinct
races. There is not, after all, such a difference as might appear
between our ways of looking at this question of service. Ladies and
gentlemen of the cultured class in your day would no more have
permitted persons of their own class to render them services they would
scorn to return than we would permit anybody to do so. The poor and the
uncultured, however, they looked upon as of another kind from
themselves. The equal wealth and equal opportunities of culture which
all persons now enjoy have simply made us all members of one class,
which corresponds to the most fortunate class with you. Until this
equality of condition had come to pass, the idea of the solidarity of
humanity, the brotherhood of all men, could never have become the real
conviction and practical principle of action it is nowadays. In your
day the same phrases were indeed used, but they were phrases merely."

"Do the waiters, also, volunteer?"

"No," replied Dr. Leete. "The waiters are young men in the unclassified
grade of the industrial army who are assignable to all sorts of
miscellaneous occupations not requiring special skill. Waiting on table
is one of these, and every young recruit is given a taste of it. I
myself served as a waiter for several months in this very dining-house
some forty years ago. Once more you must remember that there is
r