loosely hung together,
made for muscular effort, he wore a dark flannel shirt, thick with
grease and oil stains, redolent with tobacco, a checked waistcoat, no
collar or cravat. From the collarless circle of his shirt rose his
strong young neck and bullet head; his forehead was heavy and square
below the heavy brows; his black eyes shone deep sunken in their
caverns.

His black hair, stiff as a brush, came low on his forehead; his mouth
was large and sensual, his teeth brilliant. But his hands! never to be
forgotten! Scrubbed till flesh might well have parted from the bones!
clean, even if black and mutilated with toil; fingers forever darkened;
stained ingrained ridges rising around the nails, hard and ink-black as
leather. Maurice was Labour--its Symbol--its Epitome.

At the landlady's remark he had blushed and addressed me frankly:

"Say, I work to de 'Lights.'"

(Lights! Can such a word be expressive of the factory which has daily
blackened and scarred and dulled this human instrument?)

"To the 'Lights,' and it ain't no _cinch_, I can tell you! I got to keep
movin'. Every minute I'm late I get docked for wages--it's a day's work
to the 'Lights.' When _she_ calls me at six--why, I don't turn over and
snooze another! I just turn right out. I walk two miles to my shop--and
every man in his place at 6:45! Don't you forgit it!"

He cleaned his plate of food.

"I jest keep movin' all de time."

He wiped his mouth--rose unceremoniously, put on his pot-like derby
ajaunt, lit a vile cigar, slipped into a miserable old coat, and was
gone, the odour of his weed blending its new smell with kitchen fumes.

He is one of the absolutely real creatures I have ever seen. Of his
likeness types of crime are drawn. Maurice--blade keen-edged, hidden in
its battered sheath, its ugly case--terrible yet attractive specimen of
strength and endurance--Youth and Manhood in you are bound to labour as
on the rack, and in the ordeal you keep (as does the mass of humanity)
Silence!

Eat by this man's side, heap his plate with coarse victuals, feel the
touch of his flannel sleeve against your own flannel blouse, see his
look of brotherhood as he says:

"Say, if de job dey give you is too hard, why, I guess I kin get yer in
to the 'Lights'!"

These are sensations facts alone can give.

* * * * *

After dinner we sit all together in the parlour, the general
living-room: carpet-covered sofa, big table,