There was much in it that Austin could not fathom. Mr. Hunter had hinted at 'bills;' Miss Gwinn had spoken of the 'breaking up of her happy home;' two calamities apparently distinct and apart. And how was it that they were in ignorance of his name, his existence, his–
A startling interruption came to Austin's thoughts. Mrs. Shuck's door was pulled hastily open, and some one panting with excitement, uttering faint, sobbing cries, came running down their garden into Peter Quale's. It was Mary Baxendale. She knocked sharply at the door with nervous quickness.
'What is it, Mary?' asked Austin.
She had not seen him; but, of course, the words caused her to look up. 'Oh! sir,' the tears streaming from her eyes as she spoke, 'would you please call Mrs. Quale, and ask her to step in? Mother's on the wing.'
'I'll call her. Mary!'—for she was speeding back again—'can I get any other help for you? If I can be of use, step back and tell me.'
Sam Shuck came out of his house as Austin spoke, and went flying up Daffodil's Delight. He had gone for Dr. Bevary. The doctor had desired to be called, should there be any sudden change. Of course, he did not mean the change of death. He could be of no use in that; but how could they discriminate?
Mrs. Quale was dressed and in the sick chamber with all speed. Dr. Bevary was not long before he followed her. Neighbours on either side put their heads out.
Ten minutes at the most, and Dr. Bevary was out again. Austin was then leaning over Peter Quale's gate. He had been in no urgent mood for bed before, and this little excitement, though it did not immediately concern him, afforded an excuse for not going to it.
'How is she, sir?'
'Is it you?' responded Dr. Bevary. 'She is gone. I thought it would be sudden at the last.'
'Poor thing!' ejaculated Austin.
'Poor thing? Ay, that's what we are all apt to say when our friends die. But there is little cause when the change has been prepared for, the spirit made ripe for heaven. She's gone to a world where there's neither sickness nor pain.'
Austin made no reply. The doctor spoke again after a pause.
'Clay—to go from a solemn subject to one that—that may, however, prove not less solemn in the end—you heard me mention a stranger I met at the gates of the yard to-day, and Mr. Hunter would not take my question. Was it Gwinn of Ketterford?'
The doctor had spoken in a changed, low tone, laying his hand, in his earnestness, on Austin's shoulder. Austin paused. He did not know whether he ought to answer.
'You need not hesitate,' said the doctor, divining his scruples. 'I can understand that Mr. Hunter may have forbidden you to mention it, and that you would be faithful to him. Don't speak; your very hesitation has proved it to me. Good night, my young friend; we would both serve him if we only knew how.'
Austin watched him away, and then went indoors, for Daffodil's Delight began to be astir, and to collect itself around him, Sam Shuck having assisted in spreading the news touching Mrs. Baxendale. Daffodil's Delight thought nothing of leaving its bed, and issuing forth in shawls and pantaloons upon any rising emergency, regarding such interludes of disturbed rest as socially agreeable.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SEPARATION OF HUNTER AND HUNTER
Austin Clay sat at his desk at Hunter and Hunter's, sorting the morning letters, which little matter of employment formed part of his duties. It was the morning subsequent to the commotion in Daffodil's Delight. His thoughts were running more on that than on the letters, when the postmark 'Ketterford' on two of them caught his eye.
The one was addressed to himself, the other to 'Mr. Lewis Hunter,' and the handwriting of both was the same. Disposing of the rest of the letters as usual, placing those for the Messrs. Hunter in their room, against they should arrive, and dealing out any others there might be for the hands employed in the firm, according to their address, he proceeded to open his own.
To the very end of it Austin read; and then, and not till then, he began to suspect that it could not be meant for him. No name whatever was mentioned in the letter; it began abruptly, and it ended abruptly; not so much as 'Sir,' or 'Dear Sir,' was it complimented with, and it was simply signed 'A. G.' He read it a second time, and then its awful meaning flashed upon him, and a red flush rose to his brow and settled there, as if burnt into it with a branding iron. He had become possessed of a dangerous secret.
There was no doubt that the letter was written by Miss Gwinn to Mr. Hunter. By some extraordinary mischance, she had misdirected it. Possibly the letter now lying on Mr. Hunter's desk, might be for Austin. Though, what could she be writing about to him?
He sat down. He was quite overcome with the revelation; it was, indeed, of a terrible nature, and he would have given much not to have become cognizant of it. 'Bills!' 'Money!' So that had been Mr. Hunter's excuse for the mystery! No wonder he sought to turn suspicion into any channel but the real one.
Austin was poring over the letter like one in a nightmare, when Mr. Hunter interrupted him. He crushed it into his pocket with all the aspect of a guilty man; any one might have taken him in his confusion so to be. Not for himself was he confused, but he feared lest Mr. Hunter should discover the letter. Although certainly written for him, Austin did not dare hand it to him, for it would never do to let Mr. Hunter know that he possessed the secret. Mr. Hunter had come in, holding out the other letter from Ketterford.
'This letter is for you, Mr. Clay. It has been addressed to me by mistake, I conclude.'
Austin took it, and glanced his eyes over it. It contained a few abrupt lines, and a smaller note, sealed, was inside it.
'My brother is in London, Austin Clay. I have reason to think he will be calling upon the Messrs. Hunter. Will you watch for him, and give him the inclosed note? Had he told me where he should put up in town, I should have had no occasion to trouble you.
A. Gwinn.'
Austin did not lift his eyes to Mr. Hunter's in his usual candid open manner. He could not bear to look him in the face; he feared lest his master might read in his the dreadful truth.
'What am I to do, sir?' he asked. 'Watch for Gwinn, and give him the note?'
'Do this with them,' said Mr. Hunter.
Striking a wax match, he held both Austin's note and the sealed one over the flame until they were consumed.
'You could not fulfil the request if you wished, for the man went back to Ketterford last night.'
He said no more. He went away again, and Austin lighted another match, and burnt the crushed letter in his pocket, thankful, so far, that it had escaped Mr. Hunter.
Trouble came. Ere many days had elapsed, there was dissension in the house of Hunter and Hunter. Thoroughly united and cordial the brothers had always been; but now a cause of dispute arose, and it seemed that it could not be arranged. Mr. Hunter had drawn out five thousand pounds from the bank, and refused to state for what, except that it was for a 'private purpose.' The business had been a gradually increasing one, and nearly all the money possessed by both was invested in it; so much as was not actually out, lay in the bank in their joint names, 'Hunter and Hunter.' Each possessed a small private account, but nothing like sufficient to meet a cheque for five thousand pounds. Words ran high between them, and the sound penetrated to ears outside their private room.
His face pale, his lips compressed, his tone kept mostly subdued, James Hunter sat at his desk, his eyes falling on a ledger he was not occupied with, and his hand partially shading his face. Mr. Henry, more excited, giving way more freely to his anger, paced the carpet, occasionally stopping before the desk and before his brother.
'It is the most unaccountable thing in the world,' he reiterated, 'that you should refuse to say what it has been applied to. Draw out, surreptitiously, a formidable sum like that, and not account for it! It is monstrous.'
'Henry, I have told you all I can tell you,' replied Mr. Hunter, concealing his countenance more than ever. 'An old debt was brought up against me, and I was forced to satisfy it.'
Mr. Henry Hunter curled his lip.
'A debt to that amount! Were you mad?'
'I did not—know—I—had—contracted it,' stammered Mr. Hunter, very nearly losing his self possession. 'At least, I thought it had been paid. Youth's errors do come home to us sometimes in later life.'
'Not to the tune of five thousand pounds,' retorted Mr. Henry Hunter. 'It will cripple the business; you know it will. It is next door to ruin.'
'Nonsense, Henry! The loss of five thousand pounds will neither cripple the business nor bring ruin. It will be my own loss: not yours.'
'How on earth could you think of giving it away? Five thousand pounds!'
'I could not help myself. Had I refused to pay it–'
'Well?' for Mr. Hunter had stopped in embarrassment.
'I should have been compelled to do so. There. Talking of it will not mend it.'
Mr. Henry Hunter took a few turns, and then wheeled round sharply. 'Perhaps there are other claims for "youth's follies" to come behind it?'
The words seemed to arouse Mr. Hunter. Not to anger; but to what looked very like fear—almost to an admission that it might be so.
'Were any such further claim to come, I would not satisfy it,' he cried, wiping his face. 'No, I would not; I would go into exile first.'
'We must part,' said Mr. Henry Hunter the expression of his brother's face quite startling him. 'There is no alternative. I cannot risk the beggaring of my wife and children.'
'If it must be so, it must,' was all the reply given.
'Tell me the truth, James,' urged Mr. Henry in a more conciliatory tone. I don't want to part. Tell me all, and let me be the judge. Surely, man! it can't be anything so very dreadful. You didn't set fire to your neighbour's house, I suppose?'
'I never thought the claim could come upon me. That is all I can tell you.'
'Then we part,' decisively returned Mr. Henry Hunter.
'Yes, it may be better. If I am to go to ruin, it is of no use to drag you down into it.'
'If you are to go to ruin!' echoed Mr. Henry, regarding his brother attentively. 'James! is that an admission that other mysterious claims may really follow this one?'
'No, I think they will not. But we had better part. Only—let the cause of our separation be kept from the world.'
'I should be clever to betray the cause, seeing that you leave me in ignorance of what it may be,' answered Mr. Henry Hunter, who was feeling vexed, puzzled, and very angry.
'I mean—let no shadow of the truth get abroad. The business is large enough for two firms, and we have agreed to carry it on apart. Let that be the plea.'
'You take it coolly, James.'
A strange expression—a wrung expression—passed over the face of James Hunter. 'I cannot help myself, Henry. The five thousand pounds are gone, and of course it is right that I should bear the loss alone—or any other loss it may bring in its train.'
'But why not impart to me the facts?'
'No. It could not possibly do good; and it might make matters infinitely worse. One advantage our separation will have; there is a great deal of money owing to us from different quarters, and this will call it in.'
'Or I don't see how you would carry anything on for your part, minus your five thousand pounds,' retorted Mr. Henry, in a spirit of satire.
'Will you grant me a favour, Henry?'
'That depends upon what it may be.'
'Let the real grounds of our separation—this miserable affair that has led to it—be equally a secret from your wife, as from the world. I should not ask it without an urgent reason.'
'Don't you mean to tell Louisa?'
'No. The matter is one entirely my own; I do not wish to talk of it even to my wife. Will you give me the promise?'
'Very well. If it be of the consequence you seem to intimate. I cannot fathom you, James.'
'Let us apply ourselves now to the ways and means of the dissolution. That, at any rate, may be amicable.'
It was quite evident that he fully declined further allusion to the subject. And Mr. Henry Hunter obtained no better elucidation, then or later.
It fell upon the world like a thunderbolt—that is, the world connected with Hunter and Hunter. They separate? so flourishing a firm as that? The world at first refused to believe it; but the world soon found it was true.
Mr. Hunter retained the yard where the business was at present carried on. Mr. Henry Hunter found other premises to suit him; not far off; a little more to the west. Considerably surprised were Mrs. Hunter and Mrs. Henry Hunter; but the same plausible excuse was given to them; and they were left in ignorance of the true cause.
'Will you remain with me?' pointedly asked Mr. Hunter of Austin Clay. 'I particularly wish it.'
'As you and Mr. Henry may decide, sir,' was the reply given. 'It is not for me to choose.'
'We could both do with you, I believe. I had better talk it over with him.'
'That will be the best plan,' sir.
'What do you part for?' abruptly inquired Dr. Bevary one day of the two brothers, coming into the counting-house and catching them together.
Mr. Henry raised his eyebrows. Mr. Hunter spoke volubly.
'The business is getting too large. It will be better divided.'
'Moonshine!' cried the doctor, quietly. 'That's what you have been cramming your wives with; it won't do for me. When a concern gets unwieldy, a man takes a partner to help him on with it; you are separating. There's many a firm larger than yours. Do you remember the proverb of the bundle of sticks?'
But neither Dr. Bevary nor anybody else got at a better reason than that for the measure. The dissolution of partnership took place; it was duly gazetted, and the old firm became two. Austin remained with Mr. Hunter, and he was the only living being who gave a guess, or who could give a guess, at the real cause of separation—the drawing out of that five thousand pounds.
And yet—it was not the drawing out of that first five thousand pounds, that finally decided Mr. Henry Hunter to enforce the step, so much as the thought that other thousands might perhaps be following it. He could not divest his mind of the fear.
PART THE SECOND
CHAPTER I.
A MEETING OF THE WORKMEN
For several years after the separation of Hunter and Hunter, things went on smoothly; at least there was no event sufficiently marked that we need linger to trace it. Each had a flourishing business, though Mr. Hunter had some difficulty in staving off embarrassment in the financial department: a fact which was well known to Austin Clay, who was now confidential manager—head of all, under Mr. Hunter.
He, Austin Clay, was getting towards thirty years of age. He enjoyed a handsome salary, and was putting by money yearly. He still remained at Peter Quale's, though his position would have warranted a style of living far superior. Not that it could have brought him more respect: of that he enjoyed a full share, both from master and men. Clever, energetic, firm, and friendly, he was thoroughly fitted for his post—was liked and esteemed. But for him, Mr. Hunter's business might not have been what it was, and Mr. Hunter knew it. He was a broken-spirited man, little capable now of devoting energy to anything. The years, in their progress, had terribly altered James Hunter.
A hot evening in Daffodil's Delight; and Daffodil's Delight was making it a busy one. Uninterrupted prosperity is sometimes nearly allied to danger; or, rather, danger may grow out of it. Prosperity begets independence, and independence often begets assumption—very often, a selfish, wrong view of surrounding things. If any workmen had enjoyed of late years (it may be said) unlimited prosperity, they were those connected with the building trade. Therefore, being so flourishing, it struck some of their body, who in a degree gave laws to the rest, that the best thing they could do was to make themselves more flourishing still. As a preliminary, they began to agitate for an increase of wages: this was to be accomplished by reducing the hours of labour, the proposition being to work nine hours per day instead of ten. They said nothing about relinquishing the wages of the extra hour: they would be paid for ten hours and work nine. The proposition was first put by the men of a leading metropolitan firm to their principals, and, failing to obtain it, they threatened to strike. This it was that was just now agitating Daffodil's Delight.
In the front room of one of the houses that abutted nearly on the gutter, and to which you must ascend by steps, there might be read in the window, inscribed on a piece of paper, the following notice: 'The Misses Dunn's, Milliner and Dressmakers. Ladies own materiels made up.' The composition of the affiche was that of the two Miss Dunns jointly, who prided themselves upon being elegant scholars. A twelvemonth's apprenticeship had initiated them into the mysteries of dressmaking; millinery had come to them, as Mark Tapley would say, spontaneous, or by dint of practice. They had set up for themselves in their father's house, and could boast of a fair share of the patronage of Daffodil's Delight. Showy damsels were they, with good-humoured, turned-up noses, and light hair; much given to gadding and gossiping, and fonder of dressing themselves than of getting home the dresses of their customers.
On the above evening, they sat in their room, an upper one, stitching away. A gown was in progress for Mrs. Quale, who often boasted that she could do any work in the world, save make her own gowns. It had been in progress for two weeks, and that lady had at length come up in a temper, as Miss Jemima Dunn expressed it, and had demanded it to be returned, done or undone. They, with much deprecation, protested it should be home the first thing in the morning, and went to work. Four or five visitors, girls of their own age, were performing the part of lookers-on, and much laughter prevailed.
'I say,' cried out Martha White—a pleasant-looking girl, who had perched herself aloft on the edge of a piece of furniture, which appeared to be a low chest of drawers by day, and turn itself into a bed at night—'Mary Baxendale was crying yesterday, because of the strike; saying, it would be bad for all of us, if it came. Ain't she a soft?'
'Baxendale's again it, too,' exclaimed Miss Ryan, Pat Ryan's eldest trouble. 'Father says he don't think Baxendale 'll go in for it all.'
'Mary Baxendale's just one of them timid things as is afraid of their own shadders,' cried Mary Ann Dunn. 'If she saw a cow a-coming at the other end of the street, she'd turn tail and run. Jemimer, whatever are you at? The sleeves is to be in plaits, not gathers.'
'She do look ill, though, does Mary Baxendale,' said Jemima, after some attention to the sleeve in hand. 'It's my belief she'll never live to see Christmas; she's going the way her mother went. Won't it be prime when the men get ten hours' pay for nine hours' work? I shall think about getting married then.'
'You must find somebody to have you first,' quoth Grace Darby. 'You have not got a sweetheart yet.'
Miss Jemima tossed her head. 'I needn't to wait long for that. The chaps be as plentiful as sprats in winter. All you have got to do is to pick and choose.'
'What's that?' interrupted Mrs. Dunn, darting into the room, with her sharp tongue and her dirty fine cap. 'What's that as you're talking about, miss?'
'We are a-talking of the strike,' responded Jemima, with a covert glance to the rest. 'Martha White and Judy Ryan says the Baxendales won't go in for it.'
'Not go in for it? What idiots they must be!' returned Mrs. Dunn, the attractive subject completely diverting her attention from Miss Jemima and her words. 'Ain't nine hours a-day enough for the men to be at work? I can tell the Baxendales what—when we have got the nine hours all straight and sure, we shall next demand eight. 'Taint free-born Englishers as is going to be put upon. It'll be glorious times, girls, won't it? We shall get a taste o' fowls and salmon, may be, for dinner then!'
'My father says he does not think the masters will come-to, if the men do strike,' observed Grace Darby.
'Of course they won't—till they are forced,' retorted Mrs. Dunn, in a spirit of satire. 'But that's just what they are a-going to be. Don't you be a fool, Grace Darby!'
Lotty Cheek rushed in, a girl with a tongue almost as voluble as Mrs. Dunn's, and rough hair, the colour of a tow-rope. 'What d'ye think?' cried she, breathlessly. 'There's a-going to be a meeting of the men to-night in the big room of the Bricklayers' Arms. They are a-filing in now. I think it must be about the strike.'
'D'ye suppose it would be about anything else?' retorted Mrs. Dunn. 'I'd like to be one of 'em! I'd hold out for the day's work of eight hours, instead of nine, I would. So 'ud they, if they was men.'
Mrs. Dunn's speech was concluded to an empty room. All the girls had flown down into the street, leaving the parts of Mrs. Quale's gown in closer contact with the dusty floor than was altogether to their benefit.
The agitation in the trade had hitherto been chiefly smouldering in an under-current: now, it was rising to the surface. Lotty Cheek's inference was right; the meeting of this evening had reference to the strike. It had been hastily arranged in the day; was quite an informal sort of affair, and confined to the operatives of Mr. Hunter.
Not in a workman's jacket, but in a brown coat dangling to his heels, with a slit down the back and ventilating holes for the elbows, first entered he who had been chiefly instrumental in calling the meeting. It was Mr. Samuel Shuck; better known, you may remember, as Slippery Sam. Somehow, Sam and prosperity could not contrive to pull together in the same boat. He was one of those who like to live on the fat of the land, but are too lazy to work for their share of it. And how Sam had contrived to exist until now, and keep himself and his large family out of the workhouse, was a marvel to all. In his fits of repentance, he would manage to get in again at one or other of the yards of the Messrs. Hunter; but they were growing tired of him.
The room at the Bricklayers' Arms was tolerably commodious, and Sam took up a conspicuous position in it.
'Well,' began Sam, when the company had assembled, and were furnished with pipes and pewter pots, 'you have heard that that firm won't accept the reduction in the hours of labour, so the men have determined on a strike. Now, I have got a question to put to you. Is there most power in one man, or in a few dozens of men?'
Some laughed, and said, 'In the dozens.'
'Very good,' glibly went on Sam, whose tongue was smoother than oil, and who was gifted with a sort of oratory and some learning when he chose to put it out. 'Then, the measure I wish to urge upon you is, make common cause with those men; we are not all obliged to strike at the same time; it will be better not; but by degrees. Let every firm in London strike, each at its appointed time,' he continued, raising his voice to vehemence. 'We must stand up for ourselves; for our rights; for our wives and children. By making common cause together, we shall bowl out the masters, and bring them to terms.'
'Hooroar!' put in Pat Ryan.
'Hooroar!' echoed a few more.
An aged man, Abel White's father, usually called old White, who was past work, and had a seat at his son's chimney corner, leaned forward and spoke, his voice tremulous, but distinct. 'Samuel Shuck, did you ever know strikes do any good, either to the men or the masters? Friends,' he added, turning his venerable head around, 'I am in my eightieth year: and I picked up some experience while them eighty years was passing. Strikes have ruined some masters, in means; but they have ruined men wholesale, in means, in body, and in soul.'
'Hold there,' cried Sam Shuck, who had not brooked the interruption patiently. 'Just tell us, old White, before you go on, whether coercion answers for British workmen?'
'It does not,' replied the old man, lifting his quiet voice to firmness. 'But perhaps you will tell me in your turn, Sam Shuck, whether it's likely to answer for masters?'
'It has answered for them,' returned Sam, in a tone of irony. 'I have heard of back strikes, where the masters were coerced and coerced, till the men got all they stood out for.'
'And so brought down ruin on their own heads,' returned the old man, shaking his. 'Did you ever hear of a lock-out, Shuck?'
'Ay, ay,' interposed quiet, respectable Robert Darby. 'Did you ever hear of that, Slippery Sam?'
Slippery Sam growled. 'Let the masters lock-out if they dare! Let 'em. The men would hold out to the death.'
'And death it will be, with some of us, if the strike comes, and lasts. I came down here to-night, on my son's arm, just for your good, my friends, not for mine. At your age, I thought as some of you do; but I have learnt experience now. I can't last long, any way; and it's little matter to me whether famine from a strike be my end, or–'
'Famine' derisively retorted Slippery Sam.
'Yes, famine,' was the quiet answer. 'Strikes never yet brought nothing but misery in the end. Let me urge upon you all not to be led away. My voice is but a feeble one; but I think the Lord is sometimes pleased to show out things clearly to the aged, almost as with a gift of prophecy; and I could only come and beseech you to keep upon the straight-forrard path. Don't have anything to do with a strike; keep it away from you at arm's length, as you would keep away the evil one.'
'What's the good of listening to him?' cried Slippery Sam, in anger. 'He is in his dotage.'
'Will you listen to me then?' spoke up Peter Quale; 'I am not in mine. I didn't intend to come here, as may be guessed; but when I found so many of you bending your steps this way to listen to Slippery Sam, I thought it time to change my mind, and come and tell you what I thought of strikes.'
'You!' rudely replied Slippery Sam. 'A fellow like you, always in full work, earning the biggest wages, is sure not to favour strikes. You can't be much better off than you are.'
'That admission of yours is worth something, Slippery Sam, if there's any here have got the sense to see it,' nodded Peter Quale. 'Good workmen, on full wages, don't favour strikes. I have rose up to what I am by sticking to my work patiently, and getting on step by step. It's open to every living man to get on as I have done, if he have got skill and pluck to work. But if I had done as you do, Sam, gone in for labour one day and for play two, and for drinking, and strikes, and rebellion, because money, which I was too lazy to work for didn't drop from the skies into my hands, then I should just have been where you be.'
'Is it right to keep a man grinding and sweating his life out for ten hours a-day?' retorted Sam. The masters would be as well off if we worked nine, and the surplus men would find employment.'
'It isn't much of your life that you sweat out, Sam Shuck,' rejoined Peter Quale, with a cough that especially provoked his antagonist. 'And, as to the masters being as well off, you had better ask them about that. Perhaps they'd tell you that to pay ten hours' wages for nine hours' work would be the hour's wage dead loss to their pockets.'
'Are you rascal enough to go in for the masters?' demanded Sam, in a fiery heat. 'Who'd do that, but a traitor?'
'I go in for myself, Sam,' equably responded Peter Quale. 'I know on which side my bread's buttered. No skilful workman, possessed of prudent thought and judgment, ever yet went blindfold into a strike. At least, not many such.'
Up rose Robert Darby. 'I'd just say a word, if I can get my meaning out, but I'm not cute with the tongue. It seems to me, mates, that it would be a great boon if we could obtain the granting of the nine hours' movement; and perhaps in the end it would not affect the masters, for they'd get it out of the public. I'd agitate for this in a peaceful way, in the shape of reason and argument, and do my best in that way to get it. But I'd not like, as Peter Quale says, to plunge blindfold into a strike.'
'I look at it in this light, Darby,' said Peter Quale, 'and it seems to me it's the only light as 'll answer to look at it in. Things in this world are estimated by comparison. There ain't nothing large nor small in itself. I may say, this chair's big: well, so it is, if you match it by that there bit of a stool in the chimbley corner; but it's very small if you put it by the side of a omnibus, or of one of the sheds in our yard. Now, if you compare our wages with those of workmen in most other trades, they are large. Look at a farm labourer, poor fellow, with his ten shillings (more or less) a-week, hardly keeping body and soul together. Look at what a man earns in the malting districts in the country; fifteen shillings and his beer, is reckoned good wages. Look at a policeman, with his pound a-week. Look at a postman. Look at–'
'Look at ourselves,' intemperately interrupted Jim Dunn. 'What's other folks to us? We work hard, and we ought to be paid according.'
'So I think we are,' said Peter Quale. 'Thirty-three shillings is not bad wages, and it is only a delusion to say it is. Neither is ten hours a-day an unfair or oppressive time to work. I'd be as glad as anybody to have the hour took off, if it could be done pleasantly; but I am not going to put myself out of work and into trouble to stand out for it. It's a thing that I am convinced the masters never will give; and if Pollock's men strike for it, they'll do it against their own interests–'
Hisses, and murmurs of disapprobation from various parts of the room, interrupted Peter Quale.
'You'd better wait and understand, afore you begin to hiss,' phlegmatically recommended Peter Quale, when the noise had subsided. 'I say it will be against their interests to strike, because, I think, if they stop on strike for twelve months, they'll be no nearer getting their end. I may be wrong, but that's my opinion. There's always two sides to a question—our own, and the opposite one; and the great fault in most folks is, that they look only at their own side, and it causes them to see things in a partial view. I have looked as fair as I can at our own side, trying to put away my bias for it; and I have put myself in thought on the master's side, asking myself, what would I do, were I one of them. Thus I have tried to judge between them and us, and the conclusion I have drawed is, that they won't give in.'