One
night I went on a raid amongst the Chinese fishermen. Ropes and nets
were worth dollars and cents. It was robbery, I grant, but it was
precisely the spirit of capitalism. The capitalist takes away the
possessions of his fellow-creatures by means of a rebate, or of a
betrayal of trust, or by the purchase of senators and supreme-court
judges. I was merely crude. That was the only difference. I used a
gun.
But my crew that night was one of those inefficients against whom the
capitalist is wont to fulminate, because, forsooth, such inefficients
increase expenses and reduce dividends. My crew did both. What of
his carelessness he set fire to the big mainsail and totally
destroyed it. There weren't any dividends that night, and the
Chinese fishermen were richer by the nets and ropes we did not get.
I was bankrupt, unable just then to pay sixty-five dollars for a new
mainsail. I left my boat at anchor and went off on a bay-pirate boat
on a raid up the Sacramento River. While away on this trip, another
gang of bay pirates raided my boat.
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