“Well, afterwards they didn’t like it quite so well. In a very short time, things settled down into a regular routine. No work at all was done. So the ‘Ins’ got no wages, and the ‘Outs’ got full pay. And the farmers never discovered, till most of them were ruined, that the rascals had agreed to manage it so, and had shared the pay between them! While the thing lasted, there were funny sights to be seen! Why, I’ve often watched a ploughman, with two horses harnessed to the plough, doing his best to get it forwards; while the opposition-ploughman, with three donkeys harnessed at the other end, was doing his best to get it backwards! And the plough never moving an inch, either way!”
“But we never did anything like that!” I exclaimed.
“Simply because you were less logical than we were,” replied Mein Herr. “There is sometimes an advantage in being a donk—Excuse me! No personal allusion intended. All this happened long ago, you know!”
“Did the Dichotomy-Principle succeed in any direction?” I enquired.
“In none,” Mein Herr candidly confessed. “It had a very short trial in Commerce. The shop-keepers wouldn’t take it up, after once trying the plan of having half the attendants busy in folding up and carrying away the goods which the other half were trying to spread out upon the counters. They said the Public didn’t like it!”
“I don’t wonder at it,” I remarked.
“Well, we tried ‘the British Principle’ for some years. And the end of it all was—” His voice suddenly dropped, almost to a whisper; and large tears began to roll down his cheeks. “—the end was that we got involved in a war; and there was a great battle, in which we far out-numbered the enemy. But what could one expect, when only half of our soldiers were fighting, and the other half pulling them back? It ended in a crushing defeat—an utter rout. This caused a Revolution; and most of the Government were banished. I myself was accused of Treason, for having so strongly advocated ‘the British Principle.’ My property was all forfeited, and—and—I was driven into exile! ‘Now the mischief’s done,’ they said, ‘perhaps you’ll kindly leave the country?’ It nearly broke my heart, but I had to go!”
The melancholy tone became a wail: the wail became a chant: the chant became a song—though whether it was Mein Herr that was singing, this time, or somebody else, I could not feel certain.
“And, now the mischief’s done, perhaps
You’ll kindly go and pack your traps?