aught up the suggestion of her eyes, and carried it a little
further, but he only said: "Yes--queer folks--trying to make a
whistle--"

"Out of a pig's tail," she laughed. But her eyes thought his eyes had
gone just a little too far, so they drooped, and changed the subject.

"Well, I don't know that I would say exactly a pig's tail," he returned,
bracketing his words with his most engaging smile, "but I should say out
of highly refractory material."

His eyes in the meantime pried up her eyelids and asked what was wrong
with that. And her eyes were coy about it, and would not answer
directly.

He went on speaking: "The whole labor trouble, it seems to me, lies in
this whistle trade. A smattering of education has made labor
dissatisfied. The laboring people are trying to get out of their place,
and as a result we have strikes and lawlessness and disrespect for
courts, and men going around and making trouble in industry by 'doing
something for labor.'"

"Yes," she replied, "that is very true."

But her eyes--her big, liquid, animal eyes were saying, "How handsome
you are--you man--you great, strong, masterful man with your brown
ulster and brown hat and brown tie, and silken, black mustache." To
which his eyes replied, "And you--you are superb, and such lips and such
teeth," while what he trusted to words was:

"Yes--I believe that the laborer in the mines, for instance, doesn't
care so much about what we would consider hardship. It's natural to him.
It would be hard for us, but he gets used to it! Now, the smelter men in
that heat and fumes--they don't seem to mind it. The agonizing is done
largely by these red-mouthed agitators who never did a lick of work in
their lives."

Their elbows touched for a moment as they walked. He drew away politely
and her eyes said:

"That's all right: I didn't mind that a bit." But her lips said: "That's
what I tell Mr. Fenn, and, anyway, the work's got to be done and
cultivated people can't do it. It's got to be done by the ignorant and
coarse and those kind of people."

His eyes flinched a little at "those kind" of people and she wondered
what was wrong. But it was only for a moment that they flinched. Then
they told her eyes how fine and desirable she looked, and she replied
eyewise with a droop such as the old wolf might have used in replying to
Red Riding Hood, "The better to eat you, my child." Then his voice
spoke; his soft, false, vain, mushy voice, and asked casuall