The Story of a Mean Man

1901

This is the story of a mean man. He may not be the meanest on record, but he carries a very fair brand of closefistedness. He had a contract to supply a certain amount of crushed stone. The machine he used could turn out all the work he could get by running eight hours a day.

The mean man had an engineer who was a genius. The genius went to his employer one day and said he thought he could make some improvements in that machine so it would do more work in less time. The genius was paid by the month.

He worked on the machine for several days, taking it apart and putting it together again. When reconstructed, it proved to have greater efficiency than before, so much so that it did the same amount of work in one minute and a half that it used to take four and a half to do.

The mean man, however, could get no more contracts than before. He could fill all his orders by running about three hours a day. The mean man then went to the genius and said: "See here, Henry, I've been paying you by the month, but there isn't as much work as there used to be — not enough to keep you busy. I shall have to pay you by the hour after this." Henry demurred. He had been too faithful, but he didn't think that ought to reduce his earnings over one-half. His employer was firm, however, and Henry resigned. — New York Mail and Express.