It is _proved_ that our wages be double thine; how then may it be that thou'st knocked therefrom the stuffing ?--an miscall not the wonderly word, this being the first time under grace and providence of God it hath been granted me to hear it." Well, I was stunned; partly with this unlooked-for stupidity on his part, and partly because his fellows so manifestly sided with him and were of his mind--if you might call it mind.

My position was simple enough, plain enough; how could it ever be simplified more?
However, I must try: "Why, look here, brother Dowley, don't you see?
Your wages are merely higher than ours in _name_, not in _fact_." "Hear him! They are the _double_--ye have confessed it yourself." "Yes-yes, I don't deny that at all.

But that's got nothing to do with it; the _amount_ of the wages in mere coins, with meaningless names attached to them to know them by, has got nothing to do with it.

The thing is, how much can you _buy_ with your wages?
-- that's the idea.

While it is true that with you a good mechanic is allowed about three dollars and a half a year, and with us only about a dollar and seventy-five--" "There--ye're confessing it again, ye're confessing it again!" "Confound it, I've never denied it, I tell you! What I say is this.