time passes, the impression is
spoiled. The reverse side of things begins to show. This which you
thought was as true antique as family heirlooms, is naught but trickery
to mystify the credulous. Everything is labeled, all is for sale, from
the earth to the inhabitants. These primitives have become the most
consummate of sharpers. Given your money, they have resolved the problem
of getting it with the least expense to themselves. On all sides are
nets and traps, like spider-webs, and the fly that this gentry lies
snugly in wait for is _you_. This is what twenty or thirty years of
venality has done for a population once simple and honest, whose contact
was grateful indeed to men worn by city life. Home-made bread has
disappeared, butter comes from the dealer, they know to an art how to
skim milk and adulterate wine; they have all the vices of dwellers in
cities without their virtues.

As you leave, you count your money. So much is wanting, that you make
complaint. You are wrong. One never pays too dear for the conviction
that there are things which money will not buy.

You have need in your house of an intelligent and competent servant:
attempt to find this _rara avis_. According to the principle that with
money one may get anything, you ought, as the position you offer is
inferior, ordinary, good, or exceptional, to find servants unskilled,
average, excellent, superior. But all those who present themselves for
the vacant post are listed in the last category, and are fortified with
certificates to support their pretensions. It is true that nine times
out of ten, when put to the test, these experts are found totally
wanting. Then why did they engage themselves with you? They ought in
truth to reply as does the cook in the comedy, who is dearly paid and
proves to know nothing.

"Why did you hire out as a _cordon bleu_?
_It was to get bigger commissions."_

That is the great affair. You will always find people who like to get
big wages. More rarely you find capability. And if you are looking for
probity, the difficulty increases. Mercenaries may be had for the
asking; faithfulness is another thing. Far be it from me to deny the
existence of faithful servants, at once intelligent and upright. But you
will encounter as many, if not more, among the illy paid as among those
most highly salaried. And it little matters where you find them, you may
be sure that they are not faithful in their own interest; they are
fai