"All the same, it isn't. Take the case of a man, a designer, say, in a mill, or a lawyer, or a doctor. He devotes money, time, and the hard sweating of his brains to becoming master of his calling. Whilst he is studying he is earning just nothing at all, in fact less than nothing. When he is qualified for it he rightly expects to be better paid than a man who knows how to handle a spade or pickaxe when his life of toil begins, and knows just as much and no more when his life ends in the workhouse or the grave." "You say 'rightly expects,' why rightly?" asked Tom. "Because when the skilled and educated labourer in whatever sphere you like _does_ begin to be paid it is common justice that he should be paid, not merely for the present years of harvest, but also for the years of seeding, cultivation, and growth. It is merely the analogy of the farmer. It simply means that the toil of preparation is paid for at a later day. It is payment deferred, but none the less payment of what is justly due. Now your navvy or artisan gets his payment from the first day he touches the mattock or throws a shuttle." "There seems some justice in what say, Miss Dorothy; but I thought you were going to show me the way to your attainable Utopia." "So I am. I should imagine that the current rate of wages is very much the measure of a man's comparative worth in this life-absorbing soul-cramping pursuit of wealth you call business. When these are paid and other outlays deducted, there remains, or doesn't remain sometimes, what the capitalist calls his profit?" Tom nodded. "And it is against this profit your sensitive soul rebels, your dainty fingers will not touch?" "If it pleases you to put it so, Miss Dorothy." "Then quell your soul's rebellion, let not your fingers touch. Distribute your profit among all the workers in the concern, yourself and Ben included, for I suppose your stomach will insist on its elemental right to be filled; but distribute to each a share of the profits proportioned to his wage. For taking it that a man's wage is a rough and ready measure of a man's share in building up the wealth, so, too, would it be a rough and ready method of determine your share in the profits. And now most potent, grave, and reverend seigneur, thy hand-maiden hath spoken, and lud-ha'-mercy, 'tis sick to death I am of long faces and your miserable economics. Did ever before a young man lure a maiden to flowery bower and discourse to her sweet--political economy! I warrant you have smoother sayings for Lucy's ear. And, now, good-night. I heard Betty shouting for me down the paddock this quarter gone. Don't forget my love to Lucy." And Dorothy tripped away, and Tom made homewards, carrying the basket very tenderly; but the rose that Dorothy had toyed with and cast aside he picked up, pressed to his lips and hid in his pocket-book. Someone found its yellow leaves years afterwards, and made-believe to be jealous because of them.