"Cutlers' Arms." Little
assented: and there was a hot argument. The father of all file-cutters
objected to tyranny and innovation: Little maintained that Innovation
was nearly always Improvement--the world being silly--and was manifestly
improvement in the case under consideration. He said also he was merely
doing what the Union itself ought to do: protecting the life of Union
men who were too childish and wrong-headed to protect it themselves.

"We prefer a short life and a merry one, Mr. Little," said the father of
all file-cutters.

"A life of disease is not a merry one: slow poisoning is not a pleasant
way of living, but a miserable way of dying. None but the healthy are
happy. Many a Croesus would give half his fortune for a poor man's
stomach; yet you want your cutlers to be sick men all their days, and
not gain a shilling by it. Man alive, I am not trying to lower their
wages."

"Ay, but you are going the way to do it."

"How do you make that out?"

"The trade is full already; and, if you force the men to live to
threescore and ten, you will overcrowd it so, they will come to
starvation wages."

Little was staggered at this thunderbolt of logic, and digested the
matter in silence for a moment. Then he remembered something that had
fallen from Dr. Amboyne; and he turned to Grotait. "What do you say to
that, sir? would you grind Death's scythe for him (at the list price) to
thin the labor market?"

Grotait hesitated for once. In his heart he went with the file-cutter:
but his understanding encumbered him.

"Starvation," said he, "is as miserable a death as poisoning. But
why make a large question out of a small one, with rushing into
generalities? I really think you might let Mr. Little settle this matter
with the individual workmen. He has got a little factory, and a little
crochet; he chooses to lengthen the lives of six file-cutters. He says
to them, 'My money is my own, and I'll give you so much of it, in return
for so much work plus so much washing and other novelties.' The question
is, does his pay cover the new labor of washing, etc., as well as the
old?"

"Mr. Grotait, I pay the highest price that is going."

"In that case, I think the Unions are not bound to recognize the
discussion. Mr. Little, I have some other reasons to lay before my good
friend here, and I hope to convince him. Now, there's a little party of
us going to dine to-morrow at 'Savage's Hotel,' up by the new reservoir;
give u