The contractor's son, who acted as ganger or overseer, would find a bricklayer's assistant, male or female, sitting in the shade doing nothing. Women are employed largely as day-labourers, and more often than not it was the woman who was the slowest to obey. The overseer would tell her peremptorily to get up and go to work. The woman would pretend not to hear him. The command would be repeated in louder tones. The woman would continue to wear an air of supreme indifference, and would remain sitting. Rougher words, accompanied by threats, would at last produce the response, "All right! I am coming," but without any movement on the part of the woman. She would at length leisurely resume work. The contractor appeared to be content with this scant measure of obedience and not to expect more. But when it came to wages day he was able to pay off old scores, but not in coin of the realm. Almost everybody in India is paid monthly. When a person says, "My pay is fifteen rupees," he means that this is what he gets each month. But the contractor settled accounts when he felt inclined, and at irregular intervals. Pay-day was a very stormy one. Its advent was notified by the arrival of the money-box, much resembling the old-fashioned wooden desk of the last century. The contractor sat on the ground on a bit of old carpet, under the shade of a grass-mat, with the box before him. The process of paying often went on for some hours, because it was accompanied by much fierce arguing and angry debate. The contractor, though taking large contracts, could neither read nor write. Yet he was said to have his complicated accounts clearly registered in his own mind. He occasionally made a few mystic symbols to assist his memory, which no one understood except himself. One of his sons, who was better educated than he was, kept a record of what the labourers did, and it was from this record that their pay was calculated. A slight familiarity with the nature of Hindu business transactions would lead to the conviction that the vehement protestations of many of the labourers concerning the injustice of this record were well founded. The contractor was bent on paying no more than he was absolutely obliged. Considerations concerning justice, which still have some influence even amongst indifferent Christians, would not have entered his mind at all. His only anxiety would have been lest his men should be exasperated to the point of leaving him. Hence the workmen probably generally came out worst in the conflict because they had no other means of redress, and labour is in most places abundant in India, and vacant posts are quickly filled. The contractor, on pay-day at least, was able to show his contempt for the underlings who were so often rude to him, by the way in which he gave them their money. Tossing it to them from a distance, they had to gather it up as best they could out of the dust into which he threw it.