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presence, Mr. Barras, he used a different word for trying to run things on their own. Then they voted. Eight hundred odd in favour of starting. Seven against.”
    There was a pause.
    “And what then?” Barras said.
    “They came up to the office, a crowd of them—Heddon, Gowlan, Ogle, Howe and Dinning, and pretty small they looked, I can tell you. They asked for you. But I told them what you’d said, that you’d see none of them till they’d started in again. So Gowlan made a speech, he’s not a bad sort, for all he’s a boozer. Said they were beat and knew it. Heddon came on then with the usual Union claptrap, made a song and dance about taking the case to Harry Nugent in Parliament, but that was just to save his own face. To cut it short, they’re whacked, they’ve asked to start in on the fore shift to-morrow. I said we’d see you, sir, and let them know your answer by six.”
    Richard finished his tea.
    “So they want to start. I see,” he said. He appeared to regard the situation as interesting, and to review it without emotion. Three months ago he had secured the Parsons contract for coking coal. These contracts were precious, they were rare and very hard to get. With the contract in his pocket he had begun operations, driving into the ScupperFlats district of the Paradise and starting to strip the Dyke of its special coking coal, the only coking coal remaining in the Neptune.
    Then the men had walked out on him, in spite of him, in spite of their Union. The contract was not in his pocket now, it was in the fire. He had forfeited the contract. He had lost twenty thousand pounds.
    The pale smile fixed upon his lips seemed to say, interesting, upon my soul!
    Armstrong said:
    “Shall I post the notices then, Mr. Barras?”
    Richard compressed his lips, let his eye dwell upon the obsequious Armstrong with sudden distaste.
    “Yes,” he said coldly. “Let them start in to-morrow.”
    Armstrong sighed with relief, he moved instinctively towards the door. But Hudspeth, whose obtuse mind dealt only with the obvious, stood twisting his cap in his hands.
    “What about Fenwick?” he asked. “Has he to be started?”
    Barras said:
    “That remains with Fenwick.”
    “And the other pump?” went on Hudspeth laboriously. He was a big dull-looking fellow with a long upper lip and a heavy, sallow face.
    Richard moved restively.
    “What other pump?”
    “The hogger-pump you spoke about three months back, the day the lads came out. It ud take a lot of that water out Scupper Flats. Take it quicker, I mean, leave less muck for to stand in…”
    Cold as ice, Richard said:
    “You are sadly mistaken if you think I am proceeding in Scupper Flats. That coking coal must await another contract.”
    “Whatever you say, sir.” Hudspeth’s earthy face coloured deeply.
    “That’s all, then,” Barras said in his clear, reasonable voice. “You might let it be known that I’m glad for the men’s sakes they’re going back. All that unnecessary hardship in the town has been abominable.”
    “I’ll certainly do that, Mr. Barras,” agreed Armstrong.
    Barras was silent; and as there appeared nothing more to be said Armstrong and Hudspeth left the house.
    For a moment Barras remained with his back to the fire, thinking; then he locked away the whisky in the sideboard,picked up two lumps of sugar which had fallen on the tray and methodically replaced them in the sugar basin. It hurt him to see untidiness, to think even of a lump of sugar being wasted. At the Law
nothing
must be wasted, he could not stand it. Especially in small ways this was manifest. Matches he habitually stinted. He would use a pencil to its last bare inch. Lights must be turned out regularly, soap ends pressed into the new cake, hot water husbanded, even the fire banked with a modicum of dross. The sound of breaking china drove the blood to his head. Aunt Carrie’s chief virtue, in his eyes, was the rigour of her housekeeping.
    He stood quietly,