I fetched him along."
He produced "Socialism" from his hat and hesitated. "I don't know noth--a
thing about teaching."
"Oh, don't let that worry you," drawled Sibyl Bascom in her low voluptuous
voice and transfixing him with narrow swimming eyes; then as he refused to
be overcome, she continued more humanly: "We've been to lots of classes,
you know. There are all sorts of methods. Suppose one of us reads the first
chapter aloud and then you expound. That is, we'll ask you questions."
"That's fine," said Mr. Kirkpatrick with immense relief. "Fire away."
And Alexina, who always read prefaces and introductions last, began with
"Robert Owen and the Utopian Spirit."
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
I
Mr. Kirkpatrick realized his ambition to see with his own sharp puncturing
little eyes (Aileen said they reminded her of a sewing-machine needle
playing staccato) several of the most flagrant examples of capitalistic
extravagance where parasitic femalehood idled away their useless lives
and servitors battened. In other words the extremely comfortable or the
shamelessly luxurious homes built for the most part by still active
business men whose first real period of rest would be in a small stone
residence in a certain silent city Down the Peninsula.
Several were already occupied by their widows. In a climate where a man can
work three hundred and sixty-five days of the year the temptation to do so
is strong, and not conducive to longevity.
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