“My younger son takes great pleasure in augmenting our produce,” said Aph-Lin as we passed through the storehouses, “and therefore will inherit these lands, which constitute the chief part of my wealth.  To my elder son such inheritance would be a great trouble and affliction.”

“Are there many sons among you who think the inheritance of vast wealth would be a great trouble and affliction?”

“Certainly; there are indeed very few of the Vril-ya who do not consider that a fortune much above the average is a heavy burden.  We are rather a lazy people after the age of childhood, and do not like undergoing more cares than we can help, and great wealth does give its owner many cares.  For instance, it marks us out for public offices, which none of us like and none of us can refuse.  It necessitates our taking a continued interest in the affairs of any of our poorer countrymen, so that we may anticipate their wants and see that none fall into poverty.  There is an old proverb amongst us which says, ’The poor man’s need is the rich man’s shame—–­’”

“Pardon me, if I interrupt you for a moment.  You allow that some, even of the Vril-ya, know want, and need relief.”

“If by want you mean the destitution that prevails in a Koom-Posh, that is impossible with us, unless an An has, by some extraordinary process, got rid of all his means, cannot or will not emigrate, and has either tired out the affectionate aid of this relations or personal friends, or refuses to accept it.”

“Well, then, does he not supply the place of an infant or automaton, and become a labourer—­a servant?”

“No; then we regard him as an unfortunate person of unsound reason, and place him, at the expense of the State, in a public building, where every comfort and every luxury that can mitigate his affliction are lavished upon him.  But an An does not like to be considered out of his mind, and therefore such cases occur so seldom that the public building I speak of is now a deserted ruin, and the last inmate of it was an An whom I recollect to have seen in my childhood.  He did not seem conscious of loss of reason, and wrote glaubs (poetry).  When I spoke of wants, I meant such wants as an An with desires larger than his means sometimes entertains—­for expensive singing-birds, or bigger houses, or country-gardens; and the obvious way to satisfy such wants is to buy of him something that he sells.  Hence Ana like myself, who are very rich, are obliged to buy a great many things they do not require, and live on a very large scale where they might prefer to live on a small one.  For instance, the great size of my house in the town is a source of much trouble to my wife, and even to myself; but I am compelled to have it thus incommodiously large, because, as the richest An of the community, I am appointed to entertain the strangers from the other communities when they visit us, which they do in great crowds twice-a-year, when certain periodical