the earth, or don't you? When is it going to end?' I offered him something
to take, but he said he didn't drink, and we compromised on cigars. 'Now
when 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 is it 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 cosey 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 put together; and
he said that if a man did his best he ought to be paid as much as the best
man. I asked him if that was the principle their union was founded on, and
he said, 'Yes,' that the very meaning of their union was the protection of
the weak by the strong and the equalization of earnings among all who do
their best."

We waited for the manufacturer to go on, but he made a dramatic pause at
this point, as if to let it sink into our minds; and he did not speak