And it seems to me better
than not having any neighbors at all."
"Well, every one to his taste," said Mrs. Makely. "I wish you would tell
us how people manage with you socially, Mr. Homos."
"Why, you know," he began, "we have neither city nor country in your
sense, and so we are neither so isolated nor so crowded together. You feel
that you lose a great deal in not seeing one another oftener?" he asked
Camp.
"Yes. Folks rust out living alone. It's Human nature to want to get
together."
"And I understand Mrs. Makely that it is human nature to want to keep
apart?"
"Oh no, but to come together independently," she answered.
"Well, that is what we have contrived in our life at home. I should have
to say, in the first place, that--"
"Excuse me just one moment, Mr. Homos," said Mrs. Makely. This perverse
woman was as anxious to hear about Altruria as any of us, but she was a
woman who would rather hear the sound of her own voice than any other,
even if she were dying, as she would call it, to hear the other. The
Altrurian stopped politely, and Mrs. Makely went on: "I have been thinking
of what Mr. Camp was saying about the blacklisted men, and their all
turning into tramps--"
"But I didn't say that, Mrs.
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