. Angela,
to spare you the account of the secret, by which all the wonders of our
Common Dwelling-house are brought to pass."

"Oh! I should not have let you forget your promise, M. Agricola,"
answered Angela, "what you have already told me interests me too much
for that."

"Listen, then. M. Hardy, like a true magician, has pronounced three
cabalistic words: ASSOCIATION--COMMUNITY--FRATERNITY. We have understood
the sense of these words, and the wonders you have seen have sprung from
them, to our great advantage; and also, I repeat, to the great advantage
of M. Hardy."

"It is that which appears so extraordinary, M. Agricola."

"Suppose, mademoiselle, that M. Hardy, instead of being what he is, had
only been a cold-hearted speculator, looking merely to the profit, and
saying to himself: 'To make the most of my factory, what is needed?
Good work--great economy in the raw material--full employment of the
workman's time; in a word, cheapness of manufacture, in order to produce
cheaply--excellence of the thing produced, in order to sell dear.'"

"Truly, M. Agricola, no manufacturer could desire more."

"Well, mademoiselle, these conditions might have been fulfilled, as they
have been, but how? Had M. Hardy only been a speculator, he might have
said: 'At a distance from my factory, my workmen might have trouble to
get there: rising earlier, they will sleep less; it is a bad economy
to take from the sleep so necessary to those who toil. When they get
feeble, the work suffers for it; then the inclemency of the seasons
makes it worse; the workman arrives wet, trembling with cold, enervated
before he begins to work--and then, what work!'"

"It is unfortunately but too true, M. Agricola. At Lille, when I reached
the factory, wet through with a cold rain, I used sometimes to shiver
all day long at my work."

"Therefore, Mdlle. Angela, the speculator might say: 'To lodge
my workmen close to the door of my factory would obviate this
inconvenience. Let us make the calculation. In Paris the married workman
pays about two hundred and fifty francs a-year,(30) for one or two
wretched rooms and a closet, dark, small, unhealthy, in a narrow,
miserable street; there he lives pell-mell with his family. What ruined
constitutions are the consequence! and what sort of work can you expect
from a feverish and diseased creature? As for the single men, they pay
for a smaller, and quite as unwholesome lodging, about one hundred and
fifty f