- Fixed an issue where a particular base class within utils

- Fixed an issue where a particular base class within utils
didn't implement ``__slots__``, and therefore meant all subclasses
of that class didn't either, negating the rationale for ``__slots__``
to be in use.  Didn't cause any issue except on IronPython
which apparently does not implement ``__slots__`` behavior compatibly
with cPython.
Fixes #3494