“Seeing that men multiplied everywhere, and that the multitude of them was innumerable, he said to himself:
“‘I could indeed enchain some of these, and force them to work for me; but it would then be necessary to feed and otherwise maintain them, and that would diminish my gains. I will do better: I will let them work for nothing; they will die, in truth, but their number is great; I will amass a fortune before their number is largely diminished, and there will always remain enough of them.’
“‘Now all this multitude of men might live on what they received in exchange for their labor.’
“Having thus spoken, he addressed himself separately to some of them, and said: ‘You work six hours, and you receive a piece of money for your labor; work twelve hours and you will receive two pieces of money, and you and your wives and your little ones will live better.’
“And they believed him.
“Then he said to them, ‘You work only half the days of the year; work every day in the year and your gains will be doubled.’
“And they believed him still.
“Now it happened that the quantity of labor having been doubled without any increase in the demand therefor, the half of those who previously lived by their labor could find no one to employ them.
“Then the wicked man whom they had believed said to them: ‘I will give labor to all, under condition that you will labor the same length of time, and that I shall pay you only half so much as I have been in the habit of doing; because I indeed desire to render you a service, but I do not wish to ruin myself.’
“And as they, their wives, and little ones were suffering the pangs of hunger, they accepted the proposal of the wicked man, and they blessed him; for, said they, ‘He gives us our life.’