Arthur could have told the reason, as his neighbours knew; and it was probably the hope that he might forget his discretion that made the gossips of Briery Creek betake themselves to conjectures in his hearing as often as he was believed to have received provocation from Temple. He was never known, however, to deny or confirm anything that was said. It was pretty well understood that Temple had come here because he had made his former place of residence too hot to hold him; but whether he had libelled or slain anybody, made himself odious as an informer, enriched himself by unfair means, or been unfortunate in a duel, it still remained for some accidental revelation to make known. “How is it, Dods, that you think every act of labour tells in a young settlement?” asked Arthur, on resuming work after a large destruction of roast pig. “I have always understood that labour is worth more the more it is divided; and nowhere is there less division of labour than in a young settlement.” “Very true. I hold that we are both right, because we are speaking of different states of affairs. Before people have enough of anything to change away, and while each man works for himself, each touch of his finger, if one may say so, supplies some want of his own. No need, in such days, to trouble your head about whether your work will sell! You want a thing; you make it, and use it; and thereby feel how much your work is worth. But the case is different when you have more of a thing than you want, and would fain change it away. You cannot change it away unless others have also something more than they want to use themselves. Then they begin to club their labour together, and divide the work among them, and try by what means they can get the most done; by such division of labour they do get the most done, but it does not follow that the workmen flourish accordingly, as they do when each works for himself.” “Because it becomes more difficult to calculate how much of each sort of production will be wanted. The matter becomes perplexed by the wishes of so many being concerned. If we could understand those wishes, the more we can get produced, the better it would be for everybody.”