“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.
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.
