“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 reiterated, with a slight tipsy slur.  “That be-fouled Epictetus wasn’t the last of ’em—­nor the first.  Oh, not by any means, not by any means.”

Here Lilly could not avoid a slight spasm of amusement.  “But returning to serious conversation,” said Levison, turning his rather sallow face to Lilly.  “I think you’ll agree with me that socialism is the inevitable next step—­”

Lilly waited for some time without answering.  Then he said, with unwilling attention to the question:  “I suppose it’s the logically inevitable next step.”

“Use logic as lavatory paper,” cried Argyle harshly.  “Yes—­logically inevitable—­and humanly inevitable at the same time.  Some form of socialism is bound to come, no matter how you postpone it or try variations,” said Levison.

“All right, let it come,” said Lilly.  “It’s not my affair, neither to help it nor to keep it back, or even to try varying it.”