by draining the
glass which the maid poured out.

"You wanted that badly, sonny," said Barney Bill. "The next thing to
drinking oneself is to see another chap what enjoys swallering it."

"Bill!" said Jane reprovingly.

Barney Bill cocked his white poll across the table with the perkiness
of a quaint bird--Paul saw that the years had brought a striation of
tiny red filaments to his weather-beaten face--and fixed her with his
little glittering eyes. "Bill what? You think I'm 'urting his
feelings?" He jerked a thumb towards his host. "I ain't. He thinks good
drink's bad because bad has come of it to him--not that he ever took a
drop too much, mind yer--but bad has come of it to him, and I think
good drink's good because nothing but good has come of it to me. And
we've agreed to differ. Ain't we, Silas?"

"If every man were as moderate as you, and I am sure as Mr. Savelli, I
should have nothing to say against it. Why should I? But the working
man, unhappily, is not moderate."

"I see," said Paul. "You preach, or advocate--I think you preach--total
abstinence, and so feel it your duty to abstain yourself."

"That is so," said Mr. Finn, helping himself to mustard. "I don't wish
to bore you with my concerns; but I'm a fairly large employer of
labour. Now I have found that by employing only pledged abstainers I
get extraordinary results. I exact a very high rate of insurance,
towards a fund--I need not go into details--to which I myself
contribute a percentage--a far higher rate than would be possible if
they spent their earnings on drink. I invest the whole lot in my
business--their stoppages from wages and my contributions. I guarantee
them 3 per cent.; I give them, actually, the dividends that accrue to
the holders of ordinary stock in my company. They also have the general
advantages of insurance--sickness, burial, maternity, and so
forth--that they would get from an ordinary benefit society."

"But that's enormous," cried Paul, with keen interest. "On the face of
it, it seems impossible. It seems entirely uneconomic. Co-operative
trading is one thing; private insurance another. But how can you
combine the two?"

"The whole secret lies in the marvellously increased efficiency of the
employee." He developed his point.

Paul listened attentively. "But," said he, when his host concluded,
"isn't it rather risky? Supposing, for the sake of argument, your
business failed."

Mr. Finn held up the lean, brown hand on