The engineer came out of his dream.  His mournful eyes turned in the direction indicated and devoured the scene.  Then he glanced down at the squat figure stumping beside him.

“Guess that’s so.  But not the way you figgered when you got that fool notion of handing ’em a playhouse,” he said roughly.  “If you pass a hog a feather bed, it’s a sure thing he’ll work out the best way to muss it quick.”

“How?  I don’t get you?”

There was no humour in Bat’s eyes now.

“They call it a ’Chapel’,” Skert said dryly.  “They’ve surely got preachers, but they don’t talk religion.  Maybe that’s sort of new to you, here.  It isn’t across the water where I come from.  Guess you think those boys are racing out to get a game of checkers, or billiards, or cards, or some other fool play you reckoned to hand ’em to make ’em feel good.”  He shook his head.  “They’re not.  They’ve turned their ‘Chapel’ into a sort of parliament.  Every dinner hour there’s a feller, different fellers most all the time, gets up and hands ’em out an address.  It’s short, but red hot.  The afternoon shift in the mill is given up to brightening up their fool brains on it.  And when evening comes along, and they’ve their bellies full of supper and beer, they get along to the ‘Chapel’ and they debate the address, handing out opinions and notions just as bellies guide ’em.”

“And the addresses.  What are they mostly?  On the work?  The trade they’re working at?”

A world of pity looked out of Skert’s eyes as he surveyed the man he believed to be the greatest organiser the mill industry had ever seen.  He shook his head.

“Work?  Not on your life!  Socialism, Communism—­Revolution!”

Bat spat out a stream of tobacco juice.  He was startled.

“But I ain’t heard tell of any sort of unrest gettin’ busy.  We’re payin’ big money.  It’s bigger than the market.  They got—­”

“Best talk to Sternford when you get back up there to your office.  He’s got the boys sized right up to the last hair of their stupid heads.  But I’ll hand you something I’ve reckoned to hand you a while back, only I wanted to be sure.  There’s nothing of this truck about the ‘hands’ of the old mill.  It’s the new hands you’ve been collecting from the forests.  We’ve grown by two thousand hands in the past year or so.  And they’re so darn mixed I wouldn’t fancy trying to sort ’em.  They come from all parts.  The world’s been talking revolution since ever these buzzy-headed Muscovites reckoned to start in grabbing the world’s goods for themselves.  Well, it’s a hell of a long piece here to Labrador, but it’s found its way, and the mutton-brained fools who’re supposed to play around that shanty you handed ’em are recreating themselves talking about it in there.  Here, come right over to that window.  It’s open.”

Perhaps Skert was enjoying himself.  Certainly his mournful eyes were less mournful as he led his chief over to the open window.  Bat had had his innings with him.  He was planning the game and hitting hard in his turn.