A word now to everyone who has ever had another human being on the payroll, or on the rota, or on the hook. The aged scribe, writing to young Timoteo who kept his first table, gave him many charges – but one he gave in four words, and set it in its own verse so none could miss it: Pay the riders first, as it is written in the Letters, in the charge to Timoteo, 1:9.
Before the rent, before the flour merchant, before thine own wage – verily, before the ledger is even opened: the riders, in full, that same evening, with the tip in the pay and not instead of it. For the ledger, saith the scribe, can wait in the warmth; but the rider waiteth in the rain.
Mark how modern the mould is in this matter, beloved. It hath devised clever scales whereby the worker is not worked but engaged, and not engaged but partnered, and not paid. It calleth wages a cost and delay a cash-flow. But the scripture is not confused: the labourer is worthy of his hire, and the hire is worthy of promptness, and the promptness is worthy of no praise at all, being merely justice, which praiseth itself by working.
And when a rider cometh in soaked, let the first words not concern the next order. Let there be a towel in that kitchen, and a chair, and a slice set by. It is written in no ledger of thine – but it is written, believe me, in theirs. Amen – and pass the pizza.