ds scarce. Each day would add a further loss of many pounds
for wages, and doubtless raise fresh exactions. He gulped down something
very like a sob, and both his hand and his voice shook with strong
passion as he took the pen. "I'll sign it; but if ever my turn comes,
I'll remember this against you. This shows what they really are, Bayne.
Oh, if ever you workmen get power, GOD HELP THE WORLD!"

These words seemed to come in a great prophetic agony out of a bursting
heart.

But the representative of the Unions was neither moved by them nor
irritated.

"All right," said he, phlegmatically; "the winner takes his bite: the
loser gets his bark: that's reason."

Henry Little was in his handling-room, working away, with a bright
perspective before him, when Bayne knocked at the door, and entered with
Redcar. Bayne's face wore an expression so piteous, that Henry divined
mischief at once.

"Little, my poor fellow, it is all over. We are obliged to part with
you."

"Cheetham has thrown me over?"

"What could he do? I am to ask you to vacate these rooms, that we may
get our half-day out of the grinders."

Henry turned pale, but there was no help for it.

He got up in a very leisurely way; and, while he was putting on his
coat, he told Bayne, doggedly, he should expect his month's salary.

As he was leaving, Redcar spoke to him in rather a sheepish way. "Shake
hands, old lad," said he; "thou knows one or t'other must win; and
there's not a grain of spite against thee. It's just a trade matter."

Henry stood with his arms akimbo, and looked at Redcar. "I was in
hopes," said he, grinding his teeth, "you were going to ask me to take a
turn with you in the yard, man to man. But I can't refuse my hand to one
of my own sort that asks it. There 'tis. After all, you deserve to win,
for you are true to each other; but a master can't be true to a man, nor
to anything on earth, but his pocket."

He then strolled out into the yard, with his hands in his pockets, and
whistled "The Harmonious Blacksmith" very sick at heart.

CHAPTER IX.

The strike was over, the grinders poured into the works, and the
grindstones revolved. Henry Little leaned against an angle of the
building, and listened with aching heart to their remorseless thunder.
He stood there disconsolate--the one workman out of work--and sipped
the bitter cup, defeat. Then he walked out at the gates, and wandered
languidly into the streets. He was miserable