A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
“Is that all?” I asked, in a voice of the most perfect calmness.
“All, fair sir, save that certain matters of light moment are
placed together under a head hight sundries. If it would like
you, I will sepa--”
“It is of no consequence,” I said, accompanying the words with
a gesture of the most utter indifference; “give me the grand
total, please.”
The clerk leaned against the tree to stay himself, and said:
“Thirty-nine thousand one hundred and fifty milrays!”
The wheelwright fell off his stool, the others grabbed the table
to save themselves, and there was a deep and general ejaculation of:
“God be with us in the day of disaster!”
The clerk hastened to say:
“My father chargeth me to say he cannot honorably require you
to pay it all at this time, and therefore only prayeth you--”
I paid no more heed than if it were the idle breeze, but, with an
air of indifference amounting almost to weariness, got out my money
and tossed four dollars on to the table. Ah, you should have seen
them stare!
The clerk was astonished and charmed. He asked me to retain
one of the dollars as security, until he could go to town and
--I interrupted:
“What, and fetch back nine cents? Nonsense! Take the whole.
Keep the change.”
There was an amazed murmur to this effect:
“Verily this being is _made_ of money! He throweth it away even
as if it were dirt.”
The blacksmith was a crushed man.
The clerk took his money and reeled away drunk with fortune. I said
to Marco and his wife:
“Good folk, here is a little trifle for you”--handing the miller-guns
as if it were a matter of no consequence, though each of them
contained fifteen cents in solid cash; and while the poor creatures
went to pieces with astonishment and gratitude, I turned to the
others and said as calmly as one would ask the time of day:
“Well, if we are all ready, I judge the dinner is. Come, fall to.”
Ah, well, it was immense; yes, it was a daisy. I don't know that
I ever put a situation together better, or got happier spectacular
effects out of the materials available. The blacksmith--well, he
was simply mashed. Land! I wouldn't have felt what that man was
feeling, for anything in the world. Here he had been blowing and
bragging about his grand meat-feast twice a year, and his fresh
meat twice a month, and his salt meat twice a week, and his white
bread every Sunday the year round--all for a family of three; the
entire cost for the year not above 69.2.6 (sixty-nine cents, two
mills and six milrays), and all of a sudden here comes along a man
who slashes out nearly four dollars on a single blow-out; and not
only that, but acts as if it made him tired to handle such small
sums. Yes, Dowley was a good deal wilted, and shrunk-up and
collapsed; he had the aspect of a bladder-balloon that's been
stepped on by a cow.
CHAPTER XXXIII
SIXTH CENTURY POLITICAL ECONOMY
However, I made a dead set at him, and before the first third
of the dinner was reached, I had him happy again. It was easy
to do--in a country of ranks and castes. You see, in a country
where they have ranks and castes, a man isn't ever a man, he is
only part of a man, he can't ever get his full growth. You prove
your superiority over him in station, or rank, or fortune, and
that's the end of it--he knuckles down. You can't insult him
after that. No, I don't mean quite that; of course you _can_ insult
him, I only mean it's difficult; and so, unless you've got a lot
of useless time on your hands it doesn't pay to try. I had the
smith's reverence now, because I was apparently immensely prosperous
and rich; I could have had his adoration if I had had some little
gimcrack title of nobility. And not only his, but any commoner's
in the land, though he were the mightiest production of all the ages,
in intellect, worth, and character, and I bankrupt in all three.
This was to remain so, as long as England should exist in the
earth. With the spirit of prophecy upon me, I could look into
the future and see her erect statues and monuments to her unspeakable
Georges and other royal and noble clothes-horses, and leave unhonored
the creators of this world--after God--Gutenburg, Watt, Arkwright,
Whitney, Morse, Stephenson, Bell.
The king got his cargo aboard, and then, the talk not turning upon
battle, conquest, or iron-clad duel, he dulled down to drowsiness
and went off to take a nap. Mrs. Marco cleared the table, placed
the beer keg handy, and went away to eat her dinner of leavings
in humble privacy, and the rest of us soon drifted into matters
near and dear to the hearts of our sort--business and wages,
of course. At a first glance, things appeared to be exceeding
prosperous in this little tributary kingdom--whose lord was
King Bagdemagus--as compared with the state of things in my own
region. They had the “protection” system in full force here,
whereas we were working along down toward free trade, by easy
stages, and were now about half way. Before long, Dowley and I
were doing all the talking, the others hungrily listening. Dowley
warmed to his work, snuffed an advantage in the air, and began
to put questions which he considered pretty awkward ones for me,
and they did have something of that look:
“In your country, brother, what is the wage of a master bailiff,
master hind, carter, shepherd, swineherd?”
“Twenty-five milrays a day; that is to say, a quarter of a cent.”
The smith's face beamed with joy. He said:
“With us they are allowed the double of it! And what may a mechanic
get--carpenter, dauber, mason, painter, blacksmith, wheelwright,
and the like?”
“On the average, fifty milrays; half a cent a day.”
“Ho-ho! With us they are allowed a hundred! With us any good
mechanic is allowed a cent a day! I count out the tailor, but
not the others--they are all allowed a cent a day, and in driving
times they get more--yes, up to a hundred and ten and even fifteen
milrays a day. I've paid a hundred and fifteen myself, within
the week. 'Rah for protection--to Sheol with free-trade!”
And his face shone upon the company like a sunburst. But I didn't
scare at all. I rigged up my pile-driver, and allowed myself
fifteen minutes to drive him into the earth--drive him _all_ in
--drive him in till not even the curve of his skull should show
above ground. Here is the way I started in on him. I asked:
“What do you pay a pound for salt?”
“A hundred milrays.”
“We pay forty. What do you pay for beef and mutton--when you
buy it?” That was a neat hit; it made the color come.
“It varieth somewhat, but not much; one may say seventy-five milrays
the pound.”
“_We_ pay thirty-three. What do you pay for eggs?”
“Fifty milrays the dozen.”
“We pay twenty. What do you pay for beer?”
“It costeth us eight and one-half milrays the pint.”
“We get it for four; twenty-five bottles for a cent.
What do you pay for wheat?”
“At the rate of nine hundred milrays the bushel.”
“We pay four hundred. What do you pay for a man's tow-linen suit?”
“Thirteen cents.”
“We pay six. What do you pay for a stuff gown for the wife of the
laborer or the mechanic?”
“We pay eight cents, four mills.”
“Well, observe the difference: you pay eight cents and four mills,
we pay only four cents.” I prepared now to sock it to him. I said:
“Look here, dear friend, _what's become of your high wages you
were bragging so about a few minutes ago?_”--and I looked around
on the company with placid satisfaction, for I had slipped up
on him gradually and tied him hand and foot, you see, without his
ever noticing that he was being tied at all. “What's become of
those noble high wages of yours?--I seem to have knocked the
stuffing all out of them, it appears to me.”
But if you will believe me, he merely looked surprised, that
is all! he didn't grasp the situation at all, didn't know he had
walked into a trap, didn't discover that he was _in_ a trap. I could
have shot him, from sheer vexation. With cloudy eye and a struggling
intellect he fetched this out:
“Marry, I seem not to understand. It is _proved_ that our wages
be double thine; how then may it be that thou'st knocked therefrom
the stuffing?--an miscall not the wonderly word, this being the
first time under grace and providence of God it hath been granted
me to hear it.”
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.”
“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.
“The lot will cost him 32 cents. It takes him 32 working days
to earn the money--5 weeks and 2 days. Let him come to us and
work 32 days at _half_ the wages; he can buy all those things for
a shade under 14 1/2 cents; they will cost him a shade under 29
days' work, and he will have about half a week's wages over. Carry
it through the year; he would save nearly a week's wages every
two months, _your_ man nothing; thus saving five or six weeks' wages
in a year, your man not a cent. _Now_ I reckon you understand that