office. On
one side a long case with glass doors above and drawers underneath,
filled with bottles and books and papers, perhaps in not the most
systematic order; at the farther end a fire in an open-front stove; a
luxurious Turkish lounge covered with russet leather, and a bright wool
blanket thrown carelessly over it; several capacious armchairs; and in
one, with his legs stretched out on another, sat Dr. Philip Maverick,
eight and twenty or thirty years old, perhaps.

"How nice and cosey you are! I really did not know what to do with
myself. Yes, we are all on a strike, I am sorry to say."

"Bad time," and Maverick shook his head. "What's the prospect? Have a
cigar."

"The prospect is that the weakest goes to the wall, of course," answered
Jack. "Maverick, I am dreadfully muddled on this point. I have thought
of it all the week. It _is_ hard on the men. I know the general advice
is to economize more closely, but how can you do it just at the
beginning of winter? One cannot move to a cheaper tenement, fire and
lights cost more, and provision is a little dearer. Low living in winter
does not conduce to a healthy state in the spring. Then, on the other
hand, if they are going to make such sales as they did last month, they
cannot pay the wages, and realize what they consider a fair profit. But
why shouldn't the Lawrences and the Eastmans and many others give up
something, as well?"

Jack turned an anxious face to his listener.

"All you manufacturers have been crazy the last few years," he said,
delicately shaking the ashes from his cigar. "The country was such an
extensive purchaser through the war, that your dreams became Utopian.
Then everybody came home with some money and no clothes, and the people
were large consumers. Now everybody has been clothed, and the stores are
full, and here is a glutted market. Over-production, my dear fellow."

"Then I do believe it would be better to leave off for a while. Still
that would not suit as well. Half a loaf is better than no bread, to a
hungry man. But, after all," said Jack, knitting his brows, "I don't
altogether believe in the cry of over-production. The boys of war times
are men now. They are pushing in everywhere for work. They want food,
shelter, raiment. There are a great many more people in this town than
there were five years ago. Even if we only depended on the natural
increase of population"--

"But, you see, people are forever crowding into cities," inte