“That’s got moss on it,” said he. “Liberty’s all right, but it don’t put beef and beans into a man. There ain’t a mug in this ward that ain’t got it to lose; but they don’t lay in bed in the mornin’ thinkin’ about it, either, when the whistles are a blowin’; they have to climb down the street, eatin’ their breakfast out o’ one hand and buttonin’ their overalls with the other.” “But the slave,” protested Mason, “before the Civil War also had to work.” “Sure!” exclaimed Murphy. “I didn’t t’ink that the main squeeze took off his coat and drove mules, while they sat on the porch an’ spit at their boots. A young Willie, what had the Sunday-school class what I went to onct, told us that the slave owner’d open up a hand with a black snake whip, if he looked cross-eyed, and that it was the reg’lar t’ing to hang the cook up by the t’umbs if she broke a plate. But, say, that sassy t’ing was a-stringin’ me cold; because when a guy put up a thousand plunks for a bogie he wasn’t goin’ to lam the life out o’ him like they do in the show. I don’t say that he was stuck on him, mind youse, but I do say that the price worried him some, and that the worsted motto what his wife worked, and hung up in the parlor read: ‘T’ink twice before youse slug a nigger onct.’ “The gang down in Washin’ton,” proceeded Larry, “riffled the deck in ’62 an’ made a new deal; the coons looked at their hands and t’ought they had the pot cinched; they stood pat on the Fourteenth Amendment and waited for the guys with the dough to buck up. But they’re waitin’ yet. They never git their eyes on any o’ the blessin’s o’ liberty cept at ’lection time--and then they must deliver the goods. Liberty ain’t a bad game; but youse want to size up the dealer from start to finish, so’s he don’t stack the cards. There’s lots o’ people in the liberty line what used to carry a lead pipe in their pockets, but made the change because the gilt grew thicker and there wasn’t so much chance for doin’ time.” “Some one, long ago,” remarked Mason, “said something about the ‘crimes committed in the name of liberty,’ and, unfortunately, it holds good to-day.” “That’s no pipe dream! Now look here; there’s lots o’ guys right in this division, what’s swingin’ a pick for a dollar an’ a half a day, an’ hangin’ up their hats in a third story back where they have to stand on the stove and hold the kid while their wives make the bed. If a slave got sick his owner hustled in a doctor, for if the coon went up the flue it was good money goin’ to the bad. But if the pick swinger gits down on his back, the main guy cashes his time ticket, hires a Polack, an’ don’t care a picayune if his friends are invited to meet at two an’ go at t’ree, an’ he has a plain black box and an undertaker’s wagon, with a drunken carriage washer to drive it.” “But all employers are not so unfeeling; some are heard of, now and then, who help their people out of the hard places.”