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 Commune, who is notoriously the lord of all the wives of the village."

Overman was still a moment, and then growled from the depths of his being:

"I call this the lowest, the most degrading, the most bestial nightmare the human mind ever dreamed!"

Gordon waved him off with an eloquent gesture.

"You have assumed that a free commonwealth of godlike men and women would choose their worst units for their leaders."

"Nothing of the sort," he snapped. "I've supposed they would do the inevitable—choose the strongest man who looks like the majority and smells like the majority."

"A bad man would be removed," the dreamer quickly replied.

"What difference if your master be changed by an election now and then? All the worse. If I am to be a slave, I prefer the old chattel system with a master whose favour I could win and hold for life by faithful service. The old slaves often loved their masters. Could you love the Executive Officer of a Bureau for the Enforcement of Labour? Do convicts become infatuated with their keepers? To assassinate such a man would become a positive joy. How many years of such life would it take to crush out of the human soul the last spark of hope and aspiration and reduce man to a beast?"