e said, "we'd have the
lawless young dog at our mercy. But, of course, we shall not. Why don't
the yarn teach us a lesson? Why don't it show us that, though the thread
is nought, and you can break it, same as Raymond Ironsyde can break me
or you, yet when you get to the twist, and the doubling and the
trebling, then it's strong enough to defy anything. And if we combined
as we ought, we shouldn't be waiting here to listen to what he's got to
say; we should be waiting here to tell him what we've got to say. If we
had the wit and understanding to twist our threads into one rope against
the wickedness of the world, then we should have it all our own way."

"Yes--all your own way to do your own wickedness," declared Best. "We
know very well what your idea of fairness is. You look upon capital as a
natural enemy, and if Raymond Ironsyde was an angel with wings, you'd
still feel to him that he was a foe and not a friend."

"The tradition is in the blood," declared Levi. "Capital is our natural
enemy, as you say. Our fathers knew it, and we know it, and our children
will know it."

"Your fathers had a great deal more sense than you have, Baggs,"
declared Mr. Churchouse. "And if you only remember the past a little,
you wouldn't grumble quite so loudly at the present. But labour has a
short memory and no gratitude, unfortunately. You're always shouting out
what must be done for you; you never spare a thought on what has been
done. You never look back at the working-class drudgery of bygone
days--to the 'forties' of last century, when your fathers went to work
at the curfew bell and earned eighteen-pence a week as apprentices, and
two shillings a week and a penny for themselves after they had learned
their business. A good spinner in those days might earn five shillings a
week, Levi--and that out of doors in fair weather. In foul, he, or she,
wouldn't do so well. If you had told your fathers seventy years ago that
all the spinning walks would be done away with and the population
better off notwithstanding, they would never have believed it."

"That's the way to look at the subject, Levi," declared John Best.
"Think what the men of the past would have said to our luck--and our
education."

"Machinery brought the spinning indoors," continued Ernest. "I can
remember forty spinning walks in St. Michael's Lane alone. And with
small wages and long hours, remember the price of things, Levi; remember
the fearful price of bare necess