idents, and received a
statistical lecture in return.

"It is all in the books," he said. "The figures have been gathered, and
it has been proved conclusively that accidents rarely occur in the
first hours of the morning work, but that they increase rapidly in the
succeeding hours as the workers grow tired and slower in both their
muscular and mental processes.

"Why, do you know that your father has three times as many chances for
safety of life and limb than has a working-man? He has. The insurance*
companies know. They will charge him four dollars and twenty cents a
year on a thousand-dollar accident policy, and for the same policy they
will charge a laborer fifteen dollars."

* In the terrible wolf-struggle of those centuries, no man
was permanently safe, no matter how much wealth he amassed.
Out of fear for the welfare of their families, men devised
the scheme of insurance. To us, in this intelligent age,
such a device is laughably absurd and primitive. But in
that age insurance was a very serious matter. The amusing
part of it is that the funds of the insurance companies were
frequently plundered and wasted by the very officials who
were intrusted with the management of them.

"And you?" I asked; and in the moment of asking I was aware of a
solicitude that was something more than slight.

"Oh, as a revolutionist, I have about eight chances to the workingman's
one of being injured or killed," he answered carelessly. "The insurance
companies charge the highly trained chemists that handle explosives
eight times what they charge the workingmen. I don't think they'd insure
me at all. Why did you ask?"

My eyes fluttered, and I could feel the blood warm in my face. It
was not that he had caught me in my solicitude, but that I had caught
myself, and in his presence.

Just then my father came in and began making preparations to depart with
me. Ernest returned some books he had borrowed, and went away first. But
just as he was going, he turned and said:

"Oh, by the way, while you are ruining your own peace of mind and I
am ruining the Bishop's, you'd better look up Mrs. Wickson and
Mrs. Pertonwaithe. Their husbands, you know, are the two principal
stockholders in the Mills. Like all the rest of humanity, those two
women are tied to the machine, but they are so tied that they sit on top
of it."

CHAPTER IV

SLAVES OF THE MACHINE

The more I thought of Ja