new socially did the same?

"It's no thanks to you rich people we get big pay either," the man
continued. "You'd like mighty well to cut it down to nothing if you
could get your work done."

That was perfectly true. All their crowd at Bellevue were perpetually
complaining of the high wages they had to pay. They gave it as an excuse
for all sorts of petty meanness. Adelle felt that Major Pound would have
the suitable reply to the mason's argument, but she could not remember
it.

"Five dollars a day for a day's hard work ain't so much either, when you
think how many days in the year there's nothing doing for one reason or
another. Last year I only had four months' work all told on account of
the strikes."

"Yes," Adelle joined in eagerly, feeling that this ground was familiar
and safe, "but the strikes were your own fault, weren't they? You didn't
have to strike?"

For reply the mason looked wearily at her, and rising from his seat on
the doorstep with a gesture remarked,--

"Well, I can't stay here gassin' all night, lady. I must hike along soon
to get the Frisco train.... What do you care about it anyway, whether
the strikes are our fault or not? You've got plenty of the stuff, and we
little folks ain't got nothin' but what we earn, and that ought to
satisfy you. We must work for you sometimes, and you don't have to do a
damn thing for anybody no times. You've got the luck, and we ain't! See?
And that's about all there is to it."

Adelle felt that so far as her own case went, the man had come
remarkably near the truth. The mason turned, with an afterthought.

"And I'm not whinin' 'bout it neither, remember that! I can always earn
enough to keep me goin' and get whiskey when I want it."

He said it with a touch of pride, his workman's boast that he was
beholden to no one for meat or drink. It was more than Archie could say
now or at any time in his life.

"Are you married?" Adelle asked, feeling that if there was a woman in
the situation another line of argument might be used.

"Married! Hell, no! What do I want of being married?"

Married men, Adelle had heard, were likely to be steadier workers than
the unmarried. Also more what her class called "moral."

"I should think you would want to have your own home and children in
it," she ventured.

The mason gave her an ironical look full of meaning.

"That would sure be nice, if I could always give 'em plenty to eat and
education, the same as you can. But