hould
not be on yours. Whether a loan should be gratuitous I don't know; but I
do know that if I were to lend you my plane for a year, it would be
giving it to you. To tell you the truth, that is not what I made it for.

_W._ Well, we will say nothing about the modern maxims discovered by
the Socialist gentlemen. I ask you to do me a service; what service do
you ask of me in return?

_J._ First, then, in a year, the plane will be done for, it will be good
for nothing. It is only just, that you should let me have another
exactly like it; or that you should give me money enough to get it
repaired; or that you should supply me the ten days which I must devote
to replacing it.

_W._ This is perfectly just. I submit to these conditions. I engage to
return it, or to let you have one like it, or the value of the same. I
think you must be satisfied with this, and can require nothing further.

_J._ I think otherwise. I made the plane for myself, and not for you. I
expected to gain some advantage from it, by my work being better
finished and better paid, by an improvement in my condition. What reason
is there that I should make the plane, and you should gain the profit? I
might as well ask you to give me your saw and hatchet! What a confusion!
Is it not natural that each should keep what he has made with his own
hands, as well as his hands themselves? To use without recompense the
hands of another, I call slavery; to use without recompense the plane of
another, can this be called fraternity?

_W._ But, then, I have agreed to return it to you at the end of a year,
as well polished and as sharp as it is now.

_J._ We have nothing to do with next year; we are speaking of this year.
I have made the plane for the sake of improving my work and my
condition; if you merely return it to me in a year, it is you who will
gain the profit of it during the whole of that time. I am not bound to
do you such a service without receiving anything from you in return;
therefore, if you wish for my plane, independently of the entire
restoration already bargained for, you must do me a service which we
will now discuss; you must grant me remuneration.

And this was done thus: William granted a remuneration calculated in
such a way that, at the end of the year, James received his plane quite
new, and in addition, a compensation, consisting of a new plank, for the
advantages of which he had deprived himself, and which he had yielded to
his friend.