ay
from London simply because I fancied that it would be easier for you to
observe the conditions which exist between us. So long as you remember
them, however, your whereabouts are indifferent to me."

The young man laughed a little nervously.

"You're not over-cordial!"

Maraton shrugged his shoulders.

"The world in which you live," he remarked, "is a training school, I
suppose, for false sentiment. The slight kinship that there is between
us is of no account to me. I simply remind you once more that it is to
your advantage to neither know me or to know of me. Remember that, and
it may be London or Paris or New York--wherever you choose."

The young man remounted his coach, and Maraton passed on. He walked
without a pause to the square in which his house was situated. Here he
found Aaron hard at work and, sitting down at once, he began to sign his
letters.

"No end of people have been here," Aaron announced. "I have got rid of
them all."

"Good!" Maraton said shortly. "By-the-bye, Aaron, isn't there a meeting
to-night at the Clarion?"

Aaron nodded.

"David Ross is going to speak. He can move them when he starts. My
sister is going to call here for me, and I thought if you didn't want
me, I'd like to go."

"We will all go together," Maraton decided. "We can creep in somewhere
at the back, I suppose. I want to hear how they do it."

The young man's face lit up with joy.

"There's sure to be lots of people there," he declared, "but we can find
a seat at the back quite easily."

"What's it all about?" Maraton asked.

"The proposed boiler-maker's strike," Aaron replied eagerly. "The
meeting is really a meeting of the workpeople at Boulding's. But are
you sure you won't go on the platform, sir?"

Maraton shook his head.

"That is just what I don't want to do. I want to see what these
meetings are like, what sort of arguments are used, what the spirit of
the people is, if I can. That is what I would really like to find out,
Aaron--the spirit of the people."

The young man looked up from his work. He was greatly changed during
the last few hours. He was wearing a new suit of clothes and clean
linen; his hair had been cut, his face shaved. Yet in some respects he
was unaltered. His eyes still burned in their sockets, his lips still
quivered.

"I will tell you what the people are like," he said. "They are like
dumb animals, like sheep. They have suffered so long and so much that
their nerve power is