44 What My Critics will Say 



him do so and perhaps thereby enable me to 

 buy my lard a little cheaper at our country 

 store. By sitting in his counting-room three 

 hundred days out of the year, and eight hours 

 of the day, he gives me my lard a little cheaper, 

 and he finds pleasure in it. The operation 

 gives him a big stone house to live in, a car- 

 riage which his wife rides in, for he never finds 

 any time, an opera box which his wife and 

 daughters may enjoy, for he has no knowledge 

 of music ; he has never had any time to learn 

 anything beyond the quotations of lard in the 

 different parts of the world. If these noble 

 men devoted to lard and other commercial 

 operations, if they like it, I am only too 

 delighted. If I thought they were breaking 

 themselves down, losing year after year of 

 oystering and wood-cutting in order to give 

 me my lard one eighth of a cent a pound 

 cheaper than I should otherwise have it, it 

 would cast a shadow over my sports; I should 

 hate to think that I was reaping while they 

 were laboring. 



Seriously, does any one contend that the life 

 of to-day is any happier, any more rational, 



