ld him that I'd eleven children and that Tom had
worked for him for four years and worked well, too. 'Very sorry,' says
he, my good woman, 'but your husband should have thought of that before.
It's against my principles,' says he, 'to have any unionists about the
place. I'm told he's been making the other men discontented. I can't take
him back. You must blame him, not me,' says he.

"I could feel the temper in me, just as though he'd given me a couple of
stiff nobblers of real old whisky. 'So you won't take Tom back,' says I,
'not for the sake of his eleven children when it's their poor
heart-broken mother that asks you?'

"'No,' says he, short, getting up from his chair. 'I can't. You've
bothered me long enough,' says he.

"I So then I decided it was time to tell the old villain just what I
thought of his grinding men down to the last penny and insulting every
decent girl that ever worked for him. He got as black in the face as if
he was smoking already on the fiery furnace that's waiting for him below,
please God, and called the shrimp of an office boy to throw me out.
'Leave the place, you disgraceful creature, or I'll send for the police,'
says he. But I left when I got ready to leave and just what I said to
him, the dirty wretch, I'll tell to you, Mrs. Phillips, some time when
she"--nodding at Nellie--"isn't about. She's getting so like a
blessed saint that one feels as if one's in church when she's about,
bless her heart!"

"You're getting very particular all at once, Mrs. Macanany," observed
Nellie.

"It's a wonder he didn't send for a policeman," commented Mrs. Phillips.

"Send for a policeman! And pretty he'd look with the holy bible in his
hand repeating what I said to him, wouldn't he now?" enquired Mrs.
Macanany, once more placing her great arms on her hips and glaring with
her watery eyes at her audience.

"Did you hear that Mrs. Hobbs had a son this morning?" questioned Mrs.
Phillips, suddenly recollecting that she also might have an item of news.

"What! Mrs. Hobbs, so soon! How would I be hearing when I just came
through the back, and Tom only just gone out to wear his feet off,
looking for work? A boy again! The Lord preserve us all! It's the devil's
own luck the dear creature has, isn't it now? Why didn't you tell me
before, and me here gossiping when the dear woman will be expecting me
round to see her and the dear baby and wondering what I've got against
her for not coming? I must be off, n