"It was thought, in the beginning," said I, "that the new tavern was going to do wonders for Cedarville."
"Yes," answered the man laughing, "and so it has."
"In what respect?"
"Oh, in many. It has made some men richer, and some poorer."
"Who has it made poorer?"
"Dozens of people. You may always take it for granted, when you see a tavern-keeper who has a good run at his bar, getting rich, that a great many people are getting poor."
"How so?" I wished to hear in what way the man who was himself, as was plain to see, a good customer at somebody's bar, reasoned on the subject.
"He does not add to the general wealth. He produces nothing. He takes money from his customers, but gives them no article of value in return—nothing that can be called property, personal or real. He is just so much richer and they just so much poorer for the exchange. Is it not so?"
I readily assented to the position as true, and then said—
"Who, in particular, is poorer?"