Page:Tales in Political Economy by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.djvu/26

 these two men. The carpenter began by offering a pair of boots in exchange for the tools. "Nay," said the other, "boots are very well in their way; but they tell me you have got scores of 'em; and I reckon I can get something more than a pair of boots for my tools. Besides, I rather think I shall keep the tools myself. I am not such a fool but what I can drive a nail and use a saw almost as well as if I had done nothing else all my life." They were not able to come to any agreement, and the finder of the tools so far got the best of it, that he succeeded in getting a pair of boots from one of the other men in exchange for the loan of the saw for one day. By this time the little colony were busy in making themselves small wooden huts in which they slept, and where they found shelter from storms. As the process of building these huts went on, Green, the man who had found the tools, discovered that by lending them he could obtain either a share in what had been found by the others, or an equivalent in the form of labour. "Lend us the axe and mallet, old fellow," said one,