"
"Oh, great Scott, isn't it possible to get such a simple thing
through your head? Now look here--let me illustrate. We pay
four cents for a woman's stuff gown, you pay 8.4.0, which is
four mills more than _double_. What do you allow a laboring
woman who works on a farm?"
"Two mills a day."
"Very good; we allow but half as much; we pay her only a tenth
of a cent a day; and--"
"Again ye're conf--"
"Wait! Now, you see, the thing is very simple; this time you'll
understand it. For instance, it takes your woman 42 days to earn
her gown, at 2 mills a day--7 weeks' work; but ours earns hers
in forty days--two days _short_ of 7 weeks. Your woman has a gown,
and her whole seven weeks wages are gone; ours has a gown, and
two days' wages left, to buy something else with. There--_now_
you understand it!"
He looked--well, he merely looked dubious, it's the most I can say;
so did the others. I waited--to let the thing work. Dowley spoke
at last--and betrayed the fact that he actually hadn't gotten away
from his rooted and grounded superstitions yet. He said, with
a trifle of hesitancy:
"But--but--ye cannot fail to grant that two mills a day is better
than one."
Shucks! Well, of course, I hated to give it up. So I chanced
another flyer:
"Let us suppose a case. Suppose one of your journeymen goes out
and buys the following articles:
"1 pound of salt;
1 dozen eggs;
1 dozen pints of beer;
1 bushel of wheat;
1 tow-linen suit;
5 pounds of beef;
5 pounds of mutton.
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