nd practical as the
day. As they talked together in that long, ugly ride, Maraton almost
smiled as he thought of those perfervid dreams of his which had always
been at the back of his head; that creed of life, some part of which he
had intended to unfold to the people during these few days.

"Plain-speaking is what our folk like," John Henneford assured him, as
they sat side by side in the small open car driven by one of the
committee; "plain, honest words; sound advice, with a bit o' grit in
it."

"'To hell with the masters!' is the motto they like best," Preston
remarked, moving his pipe to the corner of his mouth. "It's an old text
but it's an ever popular one. There's the mill where I work, now,
fourteen hundred of us. The girls average from eighteen bob to a pound
a week, men twenty-four to twenty-eight, foremen thirty-five to two
pounds. It's not much of wages. The house rent's high in these parts,
and food, too. The business has just been turned into a
company--capital three hundred thousand pounds, profits last year
forty-two thousand. That's after paying us our bit. That's the sort of
thing turns the blood of the people sour up here. It was the
aristocrats brought about the revolution in France. It will be the
manufacturers who do it here, and do it quick unless things are altered.
They tell me you're a bit of a revolutionist, Mr. Maraton."

"I'm anything," Maraton answered, "that will do away with such profits
as you've been speaking of. I am anything which will bring a fair
share of the profits of his labour to the operative who now gets none.
I hate capital. It's a false quantity, a false value. It's got to come
back to the people. It belongs to them."

"You're right, man," Henneford declared grimly. "How are you going to
get it back, eh? Show us. We are powerful up here. We could paralyse
trade from the Clyde to the Thames, if we thought it would do any good.
What's your text to-night, Mr. Maraton?"

"I haven't thought," Maraton replied. "I have plenty to say to the
people though."

"You gave 'em what for in Chicago," Preston remarked, with a grin.

"I haven't been used to mince words," Maraton admitted.

"There's four thousand policemen told off to look after you," Henneford
informed him. "By-the-bye, is it true that Dale and all of them are
coming up to-night?"

Maraton nodded.

"I wired for some of them," he assented. "So long as I am going to make
a definite pronouncement, they may as well