“Oh, you shouldn’t say that,” said Mary earnestly, “because everybody knows that in the human family, woman is the only one who has always worked overtime.”

Here the third member of the committee muttered a gruff aside.  “No use talking to a woman,” said he.

“You be quiet, I’m doing this,” said the chairman.  “Another thing that everybody knows,” he continued to Mary, “a woman hasn’t the natural knack for mechanics that a man has.”

“During the war,” Mary told him, “she mastered nearly two thousand different kinds of skilled work—­work involving the utmost precision.  And the women who did this weren’t specially selected, either.  They came from every walk of life—­domestic servants, cooks, laundresses, girls who had never left home before, wives of small business men, daughters of dock labourers, titled ladies—­all kinds, all conditions.”

She told him, then, some of the things women had made—­read him reports—­showed him pictures.

“In fact,” she concluded, “we don’t have to go outside this factory to prove that a woman has the same knack for mechanics that a man has.  During the war we had as many women working here as men, and every one will tell you that they did as well as the men.”

“Well, let’s look at it another way,” said the chairman, and he nodded to his colleagues as though he knew there could be no answer to this one.  “There are only so many jobs to go around.  What are the men going to do if the women take their jobs?”

“That’s it!” nodded the other two.  All three looked at Mary.

“I used to wonder that myself,” she said, “but one day I saw that I was asking the wrong question.  There is just so much work that has to be done in the world every day, so we can all be fed and clothed, and have those things which we need to make us happy.  Now everybody in this room knows that ‘many hands make light work.’  So, don’t you see?  The more who work, the easier it will be for everybody.”

But the spokesman only smiled at this—­that smile which always meant to Mary, “No use talking to a woman”—­and aloud he said, “Well, as I told you before, we weren’t sent to argue.  We only came to tell you what the automatic hands were going to do if these four women weren’t laid off.”

“I understand,” said Mary; and turning to the four she asked, “How do you feel about it?”

“I suppose we’ll have to go,” said Mrs. Ridge, her face red but her back straighter then ever.  “I guess it was our misfortune, Miss Spencer, that we were born women.  It seems to me we always get the worst end of it, though I’m sure I don’t know why.  I did think once, when the war was on, that things were going to be different for us women after this.  But it seems not....  You’ve been good to us, and we don’t want to get you mixed up in any strike, Miss Spencer....  I guess we’d better go....”

Judge Cutler’s expression returned to Mary’s mind:  “Another year like this and, barring strikes and accidents, Spencer & Son will be on its feet again—­” Barring strikes!  Mary was under no misapprehension as to what a strike might mean....