who is out of work and starving?"

"God knows," said the professor.

And yet again there was silence. Samuel could have said that himself--
he had the utmost faith in God.

And after a while the professor himself seemed to realize that the
reply was inadequate. "You see," he went on, "there is a peculiar
condition here in Lockmanville. There was an attempt to corner the
glass industry, and that caused the building of too many factories,
and so there is overproduction. And then, besides that, they've just
invented a machine that blows as many bottles as a dozen men."

"But then what are the men to do?" asked Samuel.

"The condition readjusts itself," said the other. "The men have to go
into some other trade."

"But then--the cotton mills are on half time, too!"

"Yes, there are too many cotton mills."

"But then--in the end there will be too many everything."

"That is the tendency," said the professor.

"There are foreign markets, of course. But the difficulty really goes
deeper than that."