, 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 recognized no sort of difference between the dignity
of the different sorts of work required by the nation. The individual is never
regarded, nor regards himself, as the servant of those he serves, nor is he in
any way dependent upon them. It is always the nation which he is serving. No
difference is recognized between a waiter's functions and those of any other
worker. The fact that his is a
