There is a workman in America who earns as much as a company director. He is Max Quarterman, a thirty-year-old plasterer (泥瓦匠).Max lives in an upper middle-class housing estate. His 16 are mostly bank managers, business executives, airline pilots and the like, but Max’s seven-bedroom house—   17  $80,000—is the largest in the area.   18  outside the house are Max’s $7000 sports car and his wife’s Morris Mini.   19  is a 150 color TV set and the family’s pride—a circular bath with gold-plated taps. There are also many labor—saving   20  and luxury(豪华) furniture.How can a plasterer  21  all this? The answer, says Max, is hard work. In partnership with another plasterer, Max does contract plastering jobs for a firm. The owner of the firm  22  them as human machines, the best and quickest in the   23  , who can do as much in two days as any two-man team can in two weeks.How do they   24  it? Not by working overtime. They work a normal eight-hour day, five days a week. The secret   25  in Max’s hod(桶) in which he carries the plaster(石膏) to the site of the job. Max’s is a superhod—it contains double the usual weight of plaster, and Max, a strong fellow, runs when he carries it. More time is thus   26   to get on with the plastering. Besides,   27  man wastes time smoking, and they    28   their lunch break to a   29  of an hour a day. Now Max earns over $800 a week which is four times the average weekly pay in America today, and if he gets as    30    as $150, it’s a disaster.

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