CONFUCIUS. Certainly not. The hypothesis is that he has worked
continuously since 1910. We are now in the year 2170. What is the
official lifetime?
BARNABAS. Seventy-eight. Of course it's an average; and we don't mind a
man here and there going on to ninety, or even, as a curiosity, becoming
a centenarian. But I say that a man who goes beyond that is a swindler.
CONFUCIUS. Seventy-eight into two hundred and eighty-three goes more
than three and a half times. Your department owes the Archbishop two and
a half educations and three and a half retiring pensions.
BARNABAS. Stuff! How can that be?
CONFUCIUS. At what age do your people begin to work for the community?
BURGE-LUBIN. Three. They do certain things every day when they are
three. Just to break them in, you know. But they become self-supporting,
or nearly so, at thirteen.
CONFUCIUS. And at what age do they retire?
BARNABAS. Forty-three.
CONFUCIUS. That is, they do thirty years' work; and they receive
maintenance and education, without working, for thirteen years of
childhood and thirty-five years of superannuation, forty-eight years
in all, for each thirty years' work.
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