Then the coal-burner said prayerfully: "Might I but live to see it!" "It is the income of an earl!" said Smug.
"An earl, say ye ?" said Dowley; "ye could say more than that and speak no lie; there's no earl in the realm of Bagdemagus that hath an income like to that.

Income of an earl--mf! it's the income of an angel!" "Now, then, that is what is going to happen as regards wages.
In that remote day, that man will earn, with _one_ week's work, that bill of goods which it takes you upwards of _fifty_ weeks to earn now.

Some other pretty surprising things are going to happen, too.

Brother Dowley, who is it that determines, every spring, what the particular wage of each kind of mechanic, laborer, and servant shall be for that year ?" "Sometimes the courts, sometimes the town council; but most of all, the magistrate.

Ye may say, in general terms, it is the magistrate that fixes the wages." "Doesn't ask any of those poor devils to _help_ him fix their wages for them, does he ?" "Hm! That _were_ an idea! The master that's to pay him the money is the one that's rightly concerned in that matter, ye will notice." "Yes--but I thought the other man might have some little trifle at stake in it, too; and even his wife and children, poor creatures.
The masters are these: nobles, rich men, the prosperous generally.
These few, who do no work, determine what pay the vast hive shall have who _do_ work.