ork. You haven't been,--and you know it. You've turned out rotten
iron,--stuff that any honest shop would be ashamed of. Now there's to be a
new leaf turned over here. You're to be paid on the nail; but you've got
to earn your money. I won't have any idlers or shirkers or rebels about
me. I shall work hard myself, and every man of you will, or he leaves the
shop. Now, if anybody has a complaint to make, I'll hear him before you
all."

The men were evidently impressed with Wade's Inaugural. It meant
something. But they were not to be put down so easily, after long misrule.
There began to be a whisper,--

"B'il in, Bill Tarbox! and talk up to him!"

Presently Bill shouldered forward and faced the new ruler.

Since Bill took to drink and degradation, he had been the butt-end of riot
and revolt at the Foundry. He had had his own way with Whiffler. He did
not like to abdicate and give in to this new chap without testing him.

In a better mood, Bill would have liked Wade's looks and words; but today
he had a sore head, a sour face, and a bitter heart from last night's
spree. And then he had heard--it was as well known already in Dunderbunk
as if the town-crier had cried it--that Wade was lodging at Mrs.
Purtett's, where poor Bill was excluded. So Bill stepped forward as
spokesman of the ruffianly element, and the immoral force gathered behind
and backed him heavily.

Tarbox, too, was a Saxon six-footer of thirty. But he had sagged one inch
for want of self-respect. He had spoilt his color and dyed his moustache.
He wore foxy-black pantaloons tucked into red-topped boots, with the name
of the maker on a gilt shield. His red flannel shirt was open at the neck
and caught with a black handkerchief. His damaged tile was in permanent
crape for the late lamented Poole.

"We allow," says Bill, in a tone halfway between Lablache's _De profundis_
and a burglar's bull-dog's snarl, "that we've did our work as good as need
to be did. We 'xpect we know our rights. We ha'n't ben treated fair, and
I'm damned if we're go'n' to stan' it."

"Stop!" says Wade. "No swearing in this shop!"

"Who the Devil is go'n' to stop it?" growled Tarbox.

"I am. Do you step back now, and let some one come out who can talk like a
gentleman!"

"I'm damned if I stir till I've had my say out," says Bill, shaking
himself up and looking dangerous.

"Go back!"

Wade moved close to him, also looking dangerous.

"Don't tech me!" Bill threatened, squar