licate features, and a nervous look of short sight, producing in
appearance and manner a general impression of thin grace and of a
courtesy which was apt to pass unaccountably into sarcasm. Wharton had
never felt himself personally at ease with him, either now, or in the
old days of Venturist debates.

"Certainly, we shall fight it through," Wharton replied, with
emphasis--"I have gone through the secretary's statement, which I now
hand over to you, and I never saw a clearer case. The poor wretches have
been skinned too long; it is high time the public backed them up. There
are two of the masters in the House. Denny, I should say, belonged quite
to the worst type of employer going."

He spoke with light venom, buttoning his coat as he spoke with the air
of the busy public man who must not linger over an appointment.

"Oh! Denny!" said Craven, musing; "yes, Denny is a hard man, but a just
one according to his lights. There are plenty worse than he."

Wharton was disagreeably reminded of the Venturist habit of never
accepting anything that was said quite as it stood--of not, even in
small things, "swearing to the words" of anybody. He was conscious of
the quick passing feeling that his judgment, with regard to Denny, ought
to have been enough for Craven.

"One thing more," said Craven suddenly, as Wharton looked for his
stick--"you see there is talk of arbitration."

"Oh yes, I know!" said Wharton impatiently; "a mere blind. The men have
been done by it twice before. They get some big-wig from the
neighbourhood--not in the trade, indeed, but next door to it--and, of
course, the award goes against the men."

"Then the paper will not back arbitration?"

Craven took out a note-book.

"No!--The quarrel itself is as plain as a pikestaff. The men are asking
for a mere pittance, and must get it if they are to live. It's like all
these home industries, abominably ground down. We must go for them! I
mean to go for them hot and strong. Poor devils! did you read the
evidence in that Bluebook last year? Arbitration? no, indeed! let them
live first!"

Craven looked up absently.

"And I think," he said, "you gave me Mr. Thorpe's address?" Mr. Thorpe
was the secretary.

Again Wharton gulped down his annoyance. If he chose to be expansive, it
was not for Craven to take no notice.

Craven, however, except in print, where he could be as vehement as
anybody else, never spoke but in the driest way of those workman's
grievanc