Wherefore my eyes
are tearing, for the men who have so unlucklessly--"
"Hold on!" exhorted Kirby; albeit despairing of opening the mind of a
man whose forebears for thousands of years had lived in a land where the
_corvee_--forced labour--was a hallowed institution; and where the money
of employers could always enlist the aid of government soldiery to keep
the fellaheen at their tasks. "Hold on! That sort of thing is dead and
done with. Even in the East. Chinese Gordon stamped out the last of it,
in Egypt, years ago. If a man doesn't want to work, he can't be forced
to. All his boss can do is to fire him and try to get some one in his
place. When a whole factory of men strike--especially if there are any
big contract orders to fill in a rush--the employers sometimes find it
cheaper to give them what they want than to call in untrained
strikebreakers. On the other hand, sometimes, the boss can bring the men
to terms. It all depends."
Yielding to the human joy of imparting instruction to so interested a
listener, Kirby launched forth into an elaboration of his theme; trying
to expound something of the capital-and-labour situation to his
follower; and secretly wondering at the keen zest wherewith his words
were listened to.
Seldom was Kirby so successful in making Najib follow so long an
oration. And he was pleased with his own new-found powers of explaining
Occidental customs to an Oriental mind.
Now, Logan Kirby knew the tangled Syrian character and its myriad queer
slants, as well as it can be given to a white man to know it.
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