was to lay down the
special plant already referred to; and so energetic was the professor in
his management of this and the other necessary preliminaries that six
months sufficed to place the yard in a fit state for the commencement of
actual operations.

And now the professor's troubles began in real earnest. Impressed with
the idea that he was perhaps wrong after all, and the baronet right, in
his judgment of the British workman, Herr von Schalckenberg determined
to run the risk of giving the Englishmen another trial. He had no
difficulty whatever in engaging an efficient office staff; but when it
came to securing the services of foremen, mechanics, and labourers, the
unhappy German was driven almost to despair. He advertised his wants
widely, of course, and, in response to his advertisements, the
applications for employment poured in almost literally without number.
The great entrance-gates of the works were fairly besieged, and the
roadway outside blocked by the great army of applicants, who were
admitted into the presence of the professor in gangs of twenty at a
time. The professor had set out with the resolve that he would deal as
liberally with his employes as he possibly could, consistently with
justice to his client, the baronet; and with this object he had spared
no pains to ascertain the rate of wages then ruling for such men as he
wanted. With the data thus obtained he had drawn up a scale of pay
which he was prepared to offer, and beyond which he had resolved not to
go. Armed with this, he interviewed the countless applicants as they
presented themselves before him; and the result was enough to drive to
distraction even a more patient man than Herr von Schalckenberg. The
applicants proved to be, almost without exception, trades-unionists, out
on strike because their employers had declined or had been unable to
accede to the exorbitant demands of the workmen. These workmen had in
many cases been idle for months; yet they now unhesitatingly refused
employment, and refused it insolently too, because the wages offered by
the professor, though fully equal to those paid by other employers, were
less than they chose to consider themselves entitled to. Their wives
and children were, by their own admission, naked and starving, and here
was an opportunity to clothe and feed them, yet they rejected it
scornfully. And naked, starving though the families of these wretches
might be and actually were, almost eve