n
putting such fastidious buyers to so much inconvenience. Here it is
rather the exception than the rule for the man of small business to do
just what he promises to do. He don't know the value of another's time,
is used to disappointments himself, and somehow or other will manage to
disarrange your most careful calculations. Unable himself to meet an
engagement thoroughly and exactly, he seems determined that nobody else
shall.

But you cease censuring the average business-man when you begin to deal
with the average Washington mechanic. There are some good ones, but they
are absorbed by the large and experienced dealers in labor, and are
beyond the knowledge or reach of ordinary mortals. You want a little
job done at your house; you call on a "boss;" certainly--it shall be
done instantly; a workman will be sent in a few minutes; two days
afterward he comes and "looks at it;" the next day he returns with
another man and they both look at it; another day passes, and an
apprentice-boy, with a lame negro to wait on him, comes and makes your
home hideous by pretending to begin; when they have given your family a
proper amount of information, and torn things to pieces sufficiently,
they go away. Two more days elapse, and you go again to the boss; he is
surprised--he supposed the work had been done, for he had given
"orders;" at the end of a week perhaps the job that should have consumed
two hours of honest work is done; then, if you pay the boss no more than
the work actually cost him, you know that the sum is twice as much as it
should have cost him. As a generalization this is a true picture of
Washington labor.

These things are trifles? They are just what determine the permanent
residence of multitudes of valuable citizens. They are the trifles that
in the aggregate make the difference between civilization and barbarism.
For every broken promise or slighted piece of work the city suffers.
Civilized people like to live smoothly and comfortably. Washington,
thinking of something besides hotels and boarding-houses, and the people
of leisure who come once a year to fill them for a few weeks, must
provide for a permanent population of moderately poor people. The word
of a merchant or banker is supposed to be as good as his bond; his
occupation is gone when this ceases to be the case; his standing is
reported in a business guide-book, and dealers with him act accordingly.
Cannot some of the methods that enforce integrity in