"That's a good question, Ho-Ho, a good question. As I told you, food was very easy to get in those days. We were very wise. A few people fed a large number of people, and other people did other things. I was talking, as you say, talking all the time. And so I had food, lots of food, good food, beautiful food, food I haven't tasted for sixty years, and never will again. Sometimes I think that the most wonderful achievement of our vast civilization is food—its incredible abundance, its unlimited variety, and its wonderful taste. Ah, my grandchildren! Life was truly life in those days, when we had such wonderful things to eat."
The boys were too much for them to comprehend, and they paid little attention to the words or the thoughts, as they were merely the ramblings of the senile old man in the story.
"These people who got us food were called 'free men.' It was a joke; we—the ruling classes—owned all the land, the machinery, everything. These people who got the food were our slaves. We took almost all the food they got, leaving them very little to eat so they could work and bring us more food..."
Hair-lip spoke, "As for me, I would go into the forest and get the food for myself, and if anyone tried to take it from me, I would kill them."
The old man laughed.