He paused a moment.  Then went on: 

“Well, then, to continue, what used to occupy your time and effort after your education?”

“Why,” I said, “one had, of course, to work, and then, to tell the truth, a great part of one’s time and feeling was devoted toward the other sex, towards falling in love and finding some woman to share one’s life.”

“Ah,” said the Man in Asbestos, with real interest.  “I’ve heard about your arrangements with the women, but never quite understood them.  Tell me; you say you selected some woman?”

“Yes.”

“And she became what you called your wife?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And you worked for her?” asked the Man in Asbestos in astonishment.

“Yes.”

“And she did not work?”

“No,” I answered, “of course not.”

“And half of what you had was hers?”

“Yes.”

“And she had the right to live in your house and use your things?”

“Of course,” I answered.

“How dreadful!” said the Man in Asbestos.  “I hadn’t realised the horrors of your age till now.”

He sat shivering slightly, with the same timid look in his face as before.

Then it suddenly struck me that of the figures on the street, all had looked alike.

“Tell me,” I said, “are there no women now?  Are they gone too?”

“Oh, no,” answered the Man in Asbestos, “they’re here just the same.  Some of those are women.  Only, you see, everything has been changed now.  It all came as part of their great revolt, their desire to be like the men.  Had that begun in your time?”

“Only a little.”  I answered; “they were beginning to ask for votes and equality.”

“That’s it,” said my acquaintance, “I couldn’t think of the word.  Your women, I believe, were something awful, were they not?  Covered with feathers and skins and dazzling colours made of dead things all over them?  And they laughed, did they not, and had foolish teeth, and at any moment they could inveigle you into one of those contracts!  Ugh!”

He shuddered.

“Asbestos,” I said (I knew no other name to call him), as I turned on him in wrath, “Asbestos, do you think that those jelly-bag Equalities out on the street there, with their ash-barrel suits, can be compared for one moment with our unredeemed, unreformed, heaven-created, hobble-skirted women of the twentieth century?”

Then, suddenly, another thought flashed into my mind—­

“The children,” I said, “where are the children?  Are there any?”

“Children,” he said, “no!  I have never heard of there being any such things for at least a century.  Horrible little hobgoblins they must have been!  Great big faces, and cried constantly!  And grew, did they not?  Like funguses!  I believe they were longer each year than they had been the last, and——­”

I rose.