The Cousin's Gate

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town, where every tradesman has a cousin, and every cousin has a gate that wants making.

Two carpenters, two cousins' gates,
Same oak, same hinges, same estates.
One does it cheap, to keep the peace,
One charges full, and gives a gift.
Both gates were hung by Michaelmas.
Which cousin's still a cousin? Which is not?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two carpenters in the town I've never named, and their gates, in the old chorus, were equally well hung. Each was asked by a cousin, in the same spring, for a gate, and each cousin said the thing cousins say, which is that of course they would pay, but presumably not the full rate, family being family.

The first carpenter said of course not, and named a figure about half what a stranger would pay.

What followed is so ordinary that most trades have lived through it and few have looked at it. The gate went to the back of the queue, because a half-paid job goes behind the fully paid ones in any honest diary, and the cousin, who did not know he was at the back of the queue, began to wonder why it was taking so long. The carpenter, for his part, began to resent the gate a little each week it sat there, since it was costing him a day's proper work and buying him a certain amount of chasing.

When it was finally hung it was a good gate, and the cousin paid the half, and both of them felt slightly worse about the other than they had in the spring, without either being able to say why. The cousin felt he had been made to wait. The carpenter felt he had given away a day and been chased for it. Neither had done anything wrong, and neither mentioned the gate again, and the next Christmas was a degree cooler.

The second carpenter said something different, and said it at the start, pleasantly and without apology.

I charge everybody the same, which is how I keep the roof on, so the gate is what the gate is. But you are my cousin, so I will hang it myself on a Saturday rather than sending the lad, and I will make you a latch for it that nobody else gets.

The cousin paid the full price, which he could afford, and got the Saturday and the latch, which he could not have bought at any price. The gate went into the diary in its proper place and was done in its proper turn. And every time he opened it afterwards there was the latch, which is a gift with a handle on it, and he mentioned it to people, which is something nobody has ever done about a discount.

The carpenter lost nothing, since the Saturday was his to give and the latch cost him an hour and some offcuts. And the two of them were on better terms in the autumn than they had been in the spring, which is the reverse of what usually happens when a trade does work for family.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

A discount to a friend is invisible and the resentment is not. Charge the price and give the gift separately. The mates' rate feels like generosity and functions as a slow poison, because a reduced price is not experienced as a present by anybody: the cousin cannot see the money you did not take, but he can feel the queue he went to the back of and the coolness that crept in. Meanwhile you have given away a day's wage and received, in exchange, a feeling of being put upon. Nobody planned any of it, and it happens in every trade, every year.

So separate the two things the mates' rate confuses. The price is the price, said plainly and at the start, in the same tone as you would say it to anybody, with the true reason attached: this is how I keep the roof on. Then the gift, which is a different transaction entirely, given openly and made of something a stranger cannot buy. Your own Saturday. The thing done personally rather than by the lad. The latch nobody else gets. The extra that costs you an hour and is visible every day for twenty years.

Notice why the gift works where the discount does not. It has a shape. It can be seen, mentioned and remembered, and it does not put the job at the back of any queue, since the job is fully paid and goes in its turn. The discount, by contrast, is a sum of money that changes hands in the wrong direction and then vanishes, leaving nothing behind but the small grievance on both sides.

And the discipline protects the friendship as much as the business, which is the part people miss. A cousin who has paid properly can chase you with a clear conscience and you can answer him without a sigh. Neither of you is owed anything. The whole arrangement is clean, and clean arrangements are the only ones that survive Christmas.

Two cautions. If you genuinely wish to do a piece of work for nothing, do it for nothing and say so plainly, as a present, with no invoice at all: the half-price muddle is worse than either the full price or the free one. And do not let the gift become a discount by the back door, a Saturday for every customer who asks nicely; it is a gift precisely because it is for the cousin.

Three questions, and think of the last job you did for somebody you know:

1. Where did it sit in the diary? If it went to the back, you gave a discount and a delay together, and the delay is the only part your friend noticed.
2. What is your sentence? I charge everybody the same, and here is why, and here is what I will do for you instead. Write it now, before the next cousin rings, so that it arrives as your ordinary way of working rather than as an awkwardness invented on the spot.
3. What is your latch? The thing you can give that has a shape and a handle: your own time, a personal touch, an extra with your name on it. Decide what it is in general, so the particular is easy when asked.

The Answer to the Riddle

Which cousin is still a cousin?

The one who paid full price and got a latch. Both gates were good and both were hung by Michaelmas, and one arrangement left two men slightly sore with each other over a sum neither could name, while the other left one man with a gift he shows visitors and another with his Saturday spent as he chose. The half-price gate was the generous one on paper. It was the only one of the two that cost anybody a friendship.

The verse:

Knock off the half, and wait, and sigh,
And watch the cousin wonder why.
Charge full, then give your Saturday,
And he will show the latch for years.

Until next time. Go and decide what your latch is, and say your sentence to the next friend who asks what you would charge them.

P.S. This is also the answer to the friend who sends you work and expects a cut of the price for doing so. Thank him properly, do the job at full rate, and give him something with a shape rather than a percentage. A percentage is a wage, and a man paid a wage for his friendship will begin, quite reasonably, to think of it as one.

Also in the archive: A Fifth Off the First, The Weaver's Four Sentences and Your Sister on the Lane.