ten the same result follows. The animal crops out. They
were rough girls at any time, yet, taken one by one, behaved well
enough. But I've seen boys and girls at a donation party throw cheese
and what not on the carpet and rub it in deliberately, and I don't know
that one need wonder that lunch-rooms in store or factory turn into
pig-pens, and the few decent ones can make no headway.

"I spoke out to them all, but it was no more than the wind blowing, and
at last even I gave it up. There was no conscience in them to touch.
They wanted shorter hours and more money, when they had got to the point
of seeing that I was trying to help, but they had no notion of helping
back. With my men it worked, and they talked down the women sometimes.
But when a bad year came,--for soap has its ups and downs like
everything else,--most of them struck, and the wise ones could make no
headway. 'It's a losing game,' my partner said; 'if you want to go on
you must go on alone.'

"I did go on alone. He left and took his capital with him. The best men
stayed with me and swore to take their chances. The soap was good, and I
made a hit in one or two fancy kinds, but I could not compete with men
who used mean material and turned out something that looked as well at
half the price. My money melted away, and a fire--set, they told me, by
a man I had discharged for long-continued dishonesty--finished me. I had
the name of stirring up strife for the manufacturers, because I tried to
teach my workers the principle of co-operation, and begged for it where
I could. It hurt my business standing. Men felt that I must be a fool. I
had worked for it with such absorption that I had had little time for
any joy of life. I had neither wife nor child, though I longed for both.
I would not have ease and happiness alone. I wanted it for my fellows.
To-day it might be. Ten years ago it only the thought of a dreamer, and
I made no headway.

"The fire left me stranded. I went in as superintendent of some new
works, but went out in a month, for I could not consent to cheat, and
fraud was in every pound sent out. I tried one place and another with
the same result. Competition makes honesty impossible. A man would admit
it to me without hesitation, but would end: 'There's no other way. Don't
be a fool. You can't stand out against a system.'

"'I will stand out if it starves me,' I said. 'I will not sell my soul
for any man's hire. The time is coming when this rotten