"Right, maister, right!" ejaculated the tinker, drawing a full breath at his pipe, and puffing out a full cloud of satisfaction; "there's sartainly a comfort in thinking so: yet it isn't a pleasing thing to be striving to do one's best, and to pay every one their own, and yet to be trampled upon, as poor folks too commonly are in this world."
"Very true, friend," chimed in Tim Swallow-whistle, assenting readily to a remark that reminded him so strikingly of his own experience; "very true: there's nothing that gives an honest man any uneasiness equal to that: for my part, I've no wish to be richer or loftier than my neighbours; but I must say the man must feel it hard who's ill-used, after striving to do the best he can for everybody as well as himself."
"Well, you see, maister, it shows that what the Scripter says is true, 'that money is the root of all evil,'" rejoined the tinker; "for you'll always observe that a man begins to trample upon you as soon as he happens to begin to get on in the world a little better than yourself."
"'Tis too often the case, friend," said Tim, not fully approving of the tinker's sweeping remark, but still feeling the forceful truth of it in his own case; "and yet I can't understand how it should be so."
"At any rate, maister," said the tinker, interrupting the other, "one can understand one thing: that if things could be put more on a level in this world, there wouldn't be such foul dealings as we see now; for if one man wasn't allowed to be so much stronger in the pocket than another, all men would be more likely to gain respect; all this bowing and scraping of poor to rich would be at an end, I mean."
"Why, yes," interjected the tailor, stopping his needle when it was but half way through the cloth and feeling a disposition to be abstracted; "that's true enough—true enough, friend: but for my part I don't see how the vast difference between the rich and the poor is to be remedied. You see it's the nat'ral course of things: some folk are idle, and others unlucky; while money makes money, when a man once gets hold on't—that is, if he tries to turn it over, and takes care of it as it gathers."
"Just so, maister; that's all very true as far as it goes," rejoined the tinker; "but I think that's not exactly what the parson calls the end o' the chapter. I'm but a plain man, and no great scholar; but I always take Brimmijem and Sheffield in my yearly round, and one hears a bit o' long headed-talk, maister, now and then in such places: you'll excuse me if I tell you a little of what I think about these things."
"Prythee, don't mention that, in that sort of a way," said Tim, hastily; "I'll assure thee that there's nobody likes a man that speaks his mind better than I do."
"Thank ye, maister," continued the tinker; "then I'll tell you what I think: I think there ought to be a law to compel folk that make money so fast to use it in making their fellow-creatures happy, instead of spending it on finery and foolishness."