into the sea. Throw every year hundreds of millions of dollars' worth
of shoes and wheat and clothing and all the commodities of commerce into
the sea. Won't that fix it?"

"It will certainly fix it," Mr. Calvin answered. "But it is absurd for
you to talk that way."

Ernest was upon him like a flash.

"Is it a bit more absurd than what you advocate, you machine-breaker,
returning to the antediluvian ways of your forefathers? What do you
propose in order to get rid of the surplus? You would escape the problem
of the surplus by not producing any surplus. And how do you propose
to avoid producing a surplus? By returning to a primitive method of
production, so confused and disorderly and irrational, so wasteful and
costly, that it will be impossible to produce a surplus."

Mr. Calvin swallowed. The point had been driven home. He swallowed again
and cleared his throat.

"You are right," he said. "I stand convicted. It is absurd. But we've
got to do something. It is a case of life and death for us of the middle
class. We refuse to perish. We elect to be absurd and to return to the
truly crude and wasteful methods of our forefathers. We will put back
industry to its pre-trust stage. We will break the machines. And what
are you going to do about it?"

"But you can't break the machines," Ernest replied. "You cannot make the
tide of evolution flow backward. Opposed to you are two great forces,
each of which is more powerful than you of the middle class. The large