o' this 'ere job, Dan?'

'I'll tell you more about that in a year's time,' replied Dabbs,
thrusting his fingers into his waistcoat pockets. ''Cording to Mike,
we're all goin' to be rich before we know it. Let's hope it'll come
true.'

He put his tongue in his cheek and let his eye circle round the group.

'Seems to me,' said the contemptuous man, 'he'd better look after his
own people first. Charity begins at 'ome, eh, mates?'

'What do you mean by that?' inquired a voice.

'Why, isn't his brother--what's his name? Bill--Jack--'

''Arry,' corrected Daniel.

'To be sure, 'Arry; I don't know him myself, but I 'eard talk of him.
It's him as is doin' his three months' 'ard labour.'

'That ain't no fault o' Dick Mutimer's,' asserted the apologist. 'He
always was a bad 'un, that 'Arry. Why, you can say so much, Dan? No, no,
I don't 'old with a man's bein' cried down cause he's got a brother as
disgraces himself. It was Dick as got him his place, an' a good place it
was. It wasn't Dick as put him up to thievin', I suppose?'

'No, no, that's right enough,' said Dabbs. 'Let a man be judged by
his own sayin's and doin's. There's queer stories about Dick Mutimer
himself, but--was it Scotch or Irish, Mike?'

Mike had planted his glass on the counter in a manner suggesting
replenishment.

'Now that's what I call a cruel question!' cried Mike humorously. 'The
man as doesn't stick to his country, I don't think much of him.'

The humour was not remarkable, but it caused a roar of laughter to go
up.

'Now what I want to know,' exclaimed one, returning to the main subject,
'is where Mutimer gets his money to live on. He does no work, we know
that much.'

'He told us all about that this mornin',' replied the authority. 'He has
friends as keeps him goin', that's all. As far as I can make out it's a
sort o' subscription.'

'Now, there you are!' put in Daniel with half a sneer. 'I don't call
that Socialism. Let a man support himself by his own work, then he's got
a right to say what he likes. No, no, _we_ know what Socialism means,
eh, Tom?'

The man appealed to answered with a laugh.

'Well, blest if I do, Dan! There's so many kinds o' Socialism nowadays.
Which lot does he pretend to belong to? There's the "Fiery Cross,"
and there's Roodhouse with his "Tocsin," and now I s'pose Dick'll be
startin' another paper of his own.'

'No, no,' replied Mutimer's supporter. 'He holds by the "Fiery Cross"
still, so he said this