er ideas in reference to the up-lift of woman. She
made herself known to the wives of some of the men who worked in the
factory, and called on them in their homes. She invited them to visit
her in return, and she matured a project to make the Civitas Society
her ally in this noble work of up-lift and equalization in the social
order. With such eager works, her days were filled full, and she was
glad in the realization that it was, indeed, become her splendid
privilege to share in her husband's broader life.... She was
his--partner!

It may be doubted if Hamilton had more than the shadow of knowledge as
to his wife's happiness in the changed order. The episode, as he deemed
it, in which she had been given a partnership with him, hardly remained
in his memory. When he thought of it at all, he smiled over it as over
the vagary of one among a woman's innumerable varying moods. But he
thought of it very rarely, for his time was absorbed in the desperate
struggle to find a way out from the destruction that loomed very close
at hand. In the end, he decided not to reject the offer made by Morton
in behalf of the trust. Otherwise, he would be confronted by
Carrington's competition in selling to the independent trade at a dead
loss. But he was determined ultimately to combat this competition to the
limit of his ability and capital. It was apparent to him that success
would be impossible from the outset unless he should reduce his
operating expenses to the minimum. For this reason, he planned to make
the cut in wage-scale that had been suggested by Morton, although in
reality it was to overcome the machinations of the trust, not to further
them. He solaced his conscience by reiteration of the truth: that, in
the event of winning, the reduction would have been but a temporary
thing; whereas, without it, he must close down the factory immediately.
For the sake of his workers, as well as for his own, he was resolved to
pursue the one course that offered a hope of victory.

Naturally enough, the employes did not understand or approve. When news
of the proposed cut in the scale was made known, there came clamor and
wrath and sorrow. Meetings of the workers were held, and in due time a
committee of three waited on Hamilton by appointment in the study of his
house uptown. Schmidt, the most garrulous of the three, was a man in the
prime of life, heavily built, bald, with a white mustache that gave him
a certain grotesque resemblance to B