ough Electric Light and
Installation Coy. was a veritable white elephant. They began to ask
themselves what they should do with it; and some of them even urged
unconditional surrender, or an appeal to the arbitration of the
Bankruptcy Court.

In the midst of all the confusion and demoralization there was,
however, one man who did not lose his presence of mind, who in this
dark hour of disaster remained calm and immovable, and like a vast
mountain of flesh reared his head above the storm, whose mighty
intellect perceived a way to turn this apparently hopeless defeat into
a glorious victory. That man was Adam Sweater, the Chief of the Band.

Chapter 21

The Reign of Terror. The Great Money Trick

During the next four weeks the usual reign of terror continued at 'The
Cave'. The men slaved like so many convicts under the vigilant
surveillance of Crass, Misery and Rushton. No one felt free from
observation for a single moment. It happened frequently that a man who
was working alone--as he thought--on turning round would find Hunter or
Rushton standing behind him: or one would look up from his work to
catch sight of a face watching him through a door or a window or over
the banisters. If they happened to be working in a room on the ground
floor, or at a window on any floor, they knew that both Rushton and
Hunter were in the habit of hiding among the trees that surrounded the
house, and spying upon them thus.

There was a plumber working outside repairing the guttering that ran
round the bottom edge of the roof. This poor wretch's life was a
perfect misery: he fancied he saw Hunter or Rushton in every bush. He
had two ladders to work from, and since these ladders had been in use
Misery had thought of a new way of spying on the men. Finding that he
never succeeded in catching anyone doing anything wrong when he entered
the house by one of the doors, Misery adopted the plan of crawling up
one of the ladders, getting in through one of the upper windows and
creeping softly downstairs and in and out of the rooms. Even then he
never caught anyone, but that did not matter, for he accomplished his
principal purpose--every man seemed afraid to cease working for even an
instant.

The result of all this was, of course, that the work progressed rapidly
towards completion. The hands grumbled and cursed, but all the same
every man tore into it for all he was worth. Although he did next to
nothing himself, Crass wat