"
Well, I was stunned; partly with this unlooked-for stupidity on
his part, and partly because his fellows so manifestly sided with
him and were of his mind--if you might call it mind. My position
was simple enough, plain enough; how could it ever be simplified
more? However, I must try:
"Why, look here, brother Dowley, don't you see? Your wages are
merely higher than ours in _name_, not in _fact_."
"Hear him! They are the _double_--ye have confessed it yourself."
"Yes-yes, I don't deny that at all. But that's got nothing to do
with it; the _amount_ of the wages in mere coins, with meaningless
names attached to them to know them by, has got nothing to do
with it. The thing is, how much can you _buy_ with your wages?
--that's the idea. While it is true that with you a good mechanic
is allowed about three dollars and a half a year, and with us only
about a dollar and seventy-five--"
"There--ye're confessing it again, ye're confessing it again!"
"Confound it, I've never denied it, I tell you! What I say is
this. With us _half_ a dollar buys more than a _dollar_ buys
with you--and THEREFORE it stands to reason and the commonest
kind of common-sense, that our wages are _higher_ than yours."
He looked dazed, and said, despairingly:
"Verily, I cannot make it out. Ye've just said ours are the
higher, and with the same breath ye take it back.
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