ago, when
they made it fifty-six hours, we were fools to keep up the pay. I said so
then, at the conference, but they wouldn't listen to me. They listened
this time. Holster and one or two others croaked, but we shut 'em up. No,
they won't get any more pay, not a damned cent."

Orcutt had listened patiently, lugubriously.

"I told them that."

"What did they say?"

"They said they thought there'd be a strike."

"Pooh! Strike!" exclaimed Ditmar with contemptuous violence. "Do you
believe that? You're always borrowing trouble, you are. They may have a
strike at one mill, the Clarendon. I hope they do, I hope Holster gets it
in the neck--he don't know how to run a mill anyway. We won't have any
strike, our people understand when they're well off, they've got all the
work they can do, they're sending fortunes back to the old country or
piling them up in the banks. It's all bluff."

"There was a meeting of the English branch of the I. W. W. last night. A
committee was appointed," said Orcutt, who as usual took a gloomy
satisfaction in the prospect of disaster.

"The I. W. W.! My God, Orcutt, don't you know enough not to come in here
wasting my time talking about the I. W. W.? Those anarchists haven't got
any organization. Can't you get that through your head?"

"All right," replied Orcutt, and marched off. Janet felt rather sorry for
him, though she had to admit that his manner was exasperating. But
Ditmar's anger, instead of cooling, increased: it all seemed directed
against the unfortunate superintendent.

"Would you believe that a man who's been in this mill twenty-five years
could be such a fool?" he demanded. "The I. W. W.! Why not the Ku Klux?
He must think I haven't anything to do but chin. I don't know why I keep
him here, sometimes I think he'll drive me crazy."

His eyes seemed to have grown small and red, as was always the case when
his temper got the better of him. Janet did not reply, but sat with her
pencil poised over her book.

"Let's see, where was I?" he asked. "I can't finish that letter now. Go
out and do the others."

Mundane experience, like a badly mixed cake, has a tendency to run in
streaks, and on the day following the incident related above Janet's
heart was heavy. Ditmar betrayed an increased shortness of temper and
preoccupation; and the consciousness that her love had lent her a
clairvoyant power to trace the source of his humours though these were
often hidden from or unacknowle