Page:Traveler from Altruria, Howells, 1894.djvu/78

72 is it going to end?' said I, and I pressed it home, and wouldn't let him fight off from the point. 'Do you mean when it is all going to end?' said he. 'Yes,' said I, 'all. I'm sick of it. If there's any way out I'd like to know it.' 'Well,' said he, 'I'll tell you, if you want to know. It's all going to end when you get the same amount of money for the same amount of work as we do.'"

We all laughed uproariously. The thing was deliciously comical; and nothing, I thought, attested the Altrurian's want of humor like his failure to appreciate this joke. He did not even smile in asking, "And what did you say?"

"Well," returned the manufacturer, with cosy enjoyment, "I asked him if the men would take the concern and run it themselves." We laughed again; this seemed even better than the other joke. "But he said 'No;' they would not like to do that. And then I asked him just what they would like, if they could have their own way, and he said they would like to have me run the business, and all share alike. I asked him what was the sense of that, and why if I could do something that all of them put together couldn't do I shouldn't be paid more than all of them