of them', or their children.

'Wot's become of the Professor?' asked the gentleman who sat on the
upturned pail in the corner, referring to Owen, who had not yet come
down from his work.

'P'raps 'e's preparing 'is sermon,' remarked Harlow with a laugh.

'We ain't 'ad no lectures from 'im lately, since 'e's been on that
room,' observed Easton. ''Ave we?'

'Dam good job too!' exclaimed Sawkins. 'It gives me the pip to 'ear
'im, the same old thing over and over again.'

'Poor ole Frank,' remarked Harlow. ''E does upset 'isself about
things, don't 'e?'

'More fool 'im!' said Bundy. 'I'll take bloody good care I don't go
worryin' myself to death like 'e's doin', about such dam rot as that.'

'I do believe that's wot makes 'im look so bad as 'e does,' observed
Harlow. 'Several times this morning I couldn't help noticing the way
'e kept on coughing.'

'I thought 'e seemed to be a bit better lately,' Philpot observed;
'more cheerful and happier like, and more inclined for a bit of fun.'

'He's a funny sort of chap, ain't he?' said Bundy. 'One day quite
jolly, singing and cracking jokes and tellin' yarns, and the next you
can't hardly get a word out of 'im.'

'Bloody rot, I call it,' chimed in the man on the pail. 'Wot the
'ell's the use of the likes of us troublin' our 'eads about politics?'

'Oh, I don't see that.' replied Harlow. 'We've got votes and we're
really the people what control the affairs of the country, so I reckon
we ought to take SOME interest in it, but at the same time I can't see
no sense in this 'ere Socialist wangle that Owen's always talkin'
about.'

'Nor nobody else neither,' said Crass with a jeering laugh.

'Even if all the bloody money in the world WAS divided out equal,' said
the man on the pail, profoundly, 'it wouldn't do no good! In six
months' time it would be all back in the same 'ands again.'

'Of course,' said everybody.

'But 'e 'ad a cuff the other day about money bein' no good at all!'
observed Easton. 'Don't you remember 'e said as money was the
principal cause of poverty?'

'So it is the principal cause of poverty,' said Owen, who entered at
that moment.

'Hooray!' shouted Philpot, leading off a cheer which the others took
up. 'The Professor 'as arrived and will now proceed to say a few
remarks.'

A roar of merriment greeted this sally.

'Let's 'ave our bloody dinner first, for Christ's sake,' appealed
Harlow, with mock despair.

As Owen, having fille