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mend itself to him. We can imagine what would be the conduct 

 of a man with this characteristic who has, let us say, made a large 

 fortune out of the ideas of one of his employees. The latter 

 comes to him and asks for some recompense. " Good gracious," 

 replies the shopkeeper ; " I did not ask you to do for me what 

 you did ; you yourself offered me your ideas ; I took them and 

 have had the capacity to use them. Before you gave your ideas 

 to me you should have made a formal legal agreement with me 

 as to what recompense you wanted. You did not do so, and 

 therefore I now owe you nothing whatever. Here, however, 

 is half a crown for you, which you may put by for the benefit 

 of your children." That is precisely the attitude of the British 

 nation towards those employees whose ideas have enabled it to 

 become great ; and we see it clearly in the detestable Civil List 

 pensions by which we are trying to ease our consciences from 

 the accusation of ingratitude which lies against us. Our 

 benefactors have no legal claim against us ; we therefore give 

 them nothing; but out of the noble generosity of our spirit we 

 preserve their wives and daughters from beggary by sparing 

 them a few pounds a year to live upon. We once heard a 

 Member of Parliament of the shopkeeper type declare that the 

 Nobel Prizes are a shocking waste of money; and this man was 

 a very wealthy person who had done nothing whatever for his 

 country either in Parliament or out of it. We have also heard 

 it said by satirists that Napoleon's aphorism is a just one, and 

 that we have not only the occupation but the spirit and the 

 manners of tradesmen, and that even many of our aristocracy 

 (which is largely descended from the tradesmen of the past) 

 possess the indefinable air of those magnificent persons in our 

 "emporiums" who direct customers to the "gentleman in the 

 next department." When George Meredith stated that we are 

 the aristocracy of Europe, he was perhaps thinking of this type 

 of man. But, after all, we are not much worse in this respect 

 than other nations are. and the stories of Camoens, Cervantes, 

 Columbus, and a hundred others will easily be remembered. 



The second part of the story of the Pied Piper contains a 

 parable. The burghers of Hamelin suddenly lost their most 

 cherished possessions for whom they had been toiling in their 

 shops and who, they had fondly hoped, would have helped them 

 in their old age. As a matter of fact, the revenge comes from 

 no miracle but from the ordinary course of events, and the 



