hat he
would let her live in a shanty, wear overalls, and pound steel all day
for union wages.

CHAPTER III

An eloquent contrast with Marie Louise was furnished by Jake Nuddle.
He was of the ebb type. He was degenerating into a shirker, a
destroyer, a money-maniac, a complainer of other men's successes. His
labor was hardly more than a foundation for blackmailing. He loved no
country, had not even a sense of following the crowd. He called the
Star-spangled Banner a dirty rag, and he wanted to wipe his feet on
it. He was useless, baneful, doomed.

Marie Louise was coming into a new Canaan. What she wanted was work
for the work's sake, to be building something and thereby building
herself, to be helping her country forward, to be helping mankind,
poor and rich. The sight of the flag made her heart ache with a
rapture of patriotism. She had the urge to march with an army.

Marie Louise was on the up grade, Jake on the down. They met at the
gate of the shipyard.

Jake and Abbie had come over by train. Jake was surly in his tone to
Davidge. His first question was, "Where do we live?"

Marie Louise answered, "In one of those quaint little cottages."

Jake frowned before he looked. He was one of those who hate before
they see, feel nausea before they taste, condemn the unknown, the
unheard, the unoffending.

By the time Jake's eyes had found the row of shanties his frown was a
splendid thing.

"Quaint little hog-pens!" he growled. "Is this company the same as all
the rest--treatin' its slaves like swine?"

Davidge knew the type. For the sake of Marie Louise he restrained his
first impulses and spoke with amiable acidity:

"There are better houses in town, some of them very handsome."

"Yah--but what rent?"

"Rather expensive. Rather distant, too, but you can make it easily in
an automobile."

"Where would I git a nautomobile?"

"I can introduce you to the man who sold me mine."

"How would I get the price?"

"Just where I did."

"Whurr's that?"

"Oh, all over the place. I used to be a common unskilled laborer like
you. And now I own a good part of this business. Thousands of men who
began poorer than I did are richer than I am. The road's just as open
to you as to me."

Jake had plenty of answers for this. He had memorized numbers of them
from the tracts; but also he had plans that would not be furthered by
quarreling with Davidge the first day. He could do Davidge most harm
by obeying him