“Well—to father, technically—same thing, of course.”
“Five hundred a year! Barnard, if anyone had told me an hour ago that you were a fool I—five hundred a year!—how can people exist on five hundred a year?”
Barney looked reproachfully at his mother. He was evidently hurt.
“That’s just the way Sartwell talks, and I suppose he thinks I’m a fool, too, merely because I’m trying to understand the labour problem. It seemed to me that if a workman with twelve children to support can live on fifty pounds a year, an elderly pair with but one child, and he about to make a fortune in painting, could get along on ten times that amount.”
“Oh, I’ve no patience with you, Barnard.”
“And then, Sartwell says, look at the capital invested——”
“Certainly. He is perfectly right, and anyone with a grain of sense would see that. There are thousands and thousands expended in the buildings and in the development of the business. The workmen never think of that—nor you either, it appears.”
“You see, mater, it’s out of my line. But what Sartwell said about investment made me think——”
“Think!” exclaimed his mother, with withering contempt.
“Yes,” continued Barney, placidly; “so I went to the workmen to see what they had to say about it. They said at once that the capital had been refunded over and over again. I went back to Sartwell to see if this were true, and it was true. Well, then——”