“That was broken by the fool boy you hired to look after me the week Jim left, because you cut his wages down,” replied the machine. “I needed that shaft to do your work with. I got nothing for myself.”
“You have had several hundred dollars’ worth of coal,” suggested Hyde.
“Coal is my food,” retorted the machine. “I could not do your work without it.”
“We have spent fourteen dollars for oil for you,” said Horne, after a little computation.
“Pshaw! that’s nothing. If I had not had the oil, where would your work have been? I might have got smoking hot; perhaps burned up your factory.”
“But we have kept you housed, fed and repaired,” said Hyde, “and you have been wasteful and extravagant. You have required the very best oil, the most expensive coal, the first quality of belts and fixtures of every sort. You have not taken half the interest in your own work that we have done and do. But for our supervision and management you would not work at all. Your very existence, in fact, is due to our industry and enterprise.”
“That all may be,” said the machine, sullenly, “but your fortune and enterprise depends very largely upon my efforts.”
“Really, upon my word,” exclaimed Mr. Hyde, impatiently, indignation at the injustice of the charges preferred getting the better of his fear of the strange complainant. “It seems to me that you are a most unreasonable machine. Of course our fortunes depend upon you, to a great extent, though, as you know, the market is full of machines, all willing to do your work if you refuse. But do we not maintain you? What more would you have us do?”
“Pay me wages,” said the machine, “as you do all these movable machines that you call ‘hands,’ and who only, so far as I can see, wait on me, and finish up the minor details of work with which I cannot bother.”
At this Hyde broke into a hearty laugh. “Well, I declare,” he said, “you are a foolish machine, as well as an unreasonable one. Why, there isn’t a ‘hand’ in the factory that’s as well off as you are. We have expended, this year, in caring for you, over five hundred dollars. You don’t suppose we spend that much for each of our ‘hands,’ do you?”