month the company makes up the payroll. On the 15th you get pay for last
month's work. The 15th, suppose you want to quit. You ask for your time.
Do you get your pay for the fifteen days? Not much. They give you a
time-check. If you'll wait thirty days you'll get a bank-check or cash,
just as they choose. Suppose you want your money right away, do you get
it?" Morrison looked fixedly at Luna.

Luna shook his head in reply.

"Of course not. What do you do? Why, you go to a bank, and if the
company's good the bank will discount your check--one, two, three, or
five per cent. Your time amounts to $60, less board. The bank gives you,
instead of $60, $57, which means that you put in one hard day's work to
get what's your due."

"The law's done away with time-checks," objected Luna.

"Oh, yes, so it has. Says you must be paid in full." Morrison called on
all his sarcasm to add emphasis to his words. "So the company complies
with the law. It writes out a bank-check for $60, but dates it thirty
days ahead, so the bank gets in its work, just the same."

Luna glanced cunningly from Morrison to Pierre.

"It strikes me that the Blue Goose isn't giving the bank a fair show. I
never cashed in at the bank."

"What time ze bank open, eh?" Pierre asked, languidly.

"Ten to four." Luna looked a trifle puzzled.

"_Bien!_ Sunday an' ze holiday?" pursued Pierre.

"'Tain't open at all."

"_Tres bien!_ Ze Blue Goose, she mek open hall ze time, day, night,
Sunday, holiday."

"Well, you get paid for it," answered Luna, doggedly.

"Oh, that isn't all," Morrison interrupted, impatiently. "I just give
you this as one example. I can bring up a thousand. You know them as
well as I do. There's no use going over the whole wash." There was no
reply. Morrison went on, "There's no use saying anything about short
time, either. You keep your own time; but what does that amount to? You
take what the company gives you. Of course, the law will take your time
before the company's; but what does that amount to? Just this: You're
two or three dollars shy on your time. You go to law about it, and
you'll get your two or three dollars; but it will cost you ten times as
much; besides, you'll be blacklisted."

It may appear that Morrison was training an able-bodied Gatling on a
very small corporal's guard, and so wasting his ammunition. The fact is,
Morrison was an active dynamo to which Luna, as an exhausted battery,
was temporarily attached. Mr. M