as coming down the road, a woman in a bright green dress with
a dirty lace blouse fastened with a gold brooch. She had turquoise
earrings in her ears and rings on her fingers.

She stopped Fulner.

"Mr. Fulner," she said in a quavering voice, "they say the master's at
the works and that Scott's given Jim away to save his own skin. It
isn't true, is it?"

Fulner looked at her with pity. Christopher liked him better than
ever.

"I'm afraid it's true, Mrs. Lawrie, but Scott couldn't help himself.
Mr. Masters spotted the game when we were in the big engine-room. You
go down to the main gate and wait for Jim. Perhaps you'll get him
home safe if you take him the short cut, not this way." He nodded his
head towards the public house they had passed.

"It's a shame," broke out the woman wildly, but her sentences were
overlaid with unwomanly words, "they all does it. I ask now, how's we
to get coal at all if we don't get the leavings. Jim only does what
they all does. What's 'arf a pail of coal to 'im? I'd like to talk to
'un, I would. Jim will go mad again, and I've three of 'un now to
think of, the brats." She flung up her arms with a superbly helpless
gesture and stumbled off down the road.

Christopher looked after her with a white face.

"What does it mean?" he asked.

"The men have a way of appropriating the remains of the last measure
of coal they put on before going off duty. It's wrong of course: it's
been going on for ages. I warned Scott--he's the foreman. They've been
complaining about the coal supply at headquarters. Mr. Masters caught
Jim Lawrie at it to-day as we left the big engine-room."

"Is it a first offence?"

"There's no first offence here," returned Fulner grimly. "There's one
only. There's the club room. We have to pay L20 a year rent for the
ground and then to keep it going."

"But surely, Mr. Masters----" began Christopher and stopped.

"Mr. Masters has nothing to do with the place outside the works. It is
not part of the System. He pays 6d. a head more than any other
employer and that frees him. There's the station."

He paused as if he would leave his companion to make his way on alone.
He was obviously dissatisfied and uneasy.

"Won't you come to the station with me?" Christopher asked, and as
they walked he began to speak slowly and hesitatingly, as one who must
choose from words that were on the verge of overflowing. "I was
brought up in Lambeth, Mr. Fulner. I am used to poverty an