WITH SILVER TAILS.
hardest week's work you ever did in your life, by making you believe it was more free-like and easier. Well, you said you didn't mind it, because you had no master; but I've found out this afternoon, Tom, and I don't mind your knowing it, that every one of those customers of yours was your master just the same. Why! you were at the beck of every man, woman, and child that came near you—obliged to be in a good temper, too, which was very aggravating.'
'True, Tom,' said the man in green, starting up in his path, 'I knew you were a man of sense; look you, you're all workingmen, and you must all please your customers. Your master was your customer; what he bought of you was your work. Well, you must let the work be such as will please the customer.'
'All workingmen; how do you make that out? said Tom, chinking the fourteen shillings in his hand. 'Is my master a workingman; and has he got a master of his own? Nonsense!'
'No nonsense at all;—he works with his head, keeps his books, and manages his great works. He has many masters, else why was he nearly ruined last year?'
'He was nearly ruined because he made some newfangled kind of patterns at his works, and people would not buy them,' said Tom. 'Well, in a way of speaking, then, he works to please his masters, poor fellow! He is, as one may say, a fellow-servant, and plagued with very awkward masters! So I should not mind his being my master, and I think I'll go and tell him so.'
