“That’s a false and wicked idea of progress, John Best, and well you know it,” answered Levi.  “You’re one of the sort content to work on a chain and bring up your children likewise; but you can’t stand between the human race and freedom—­no more can Daniel Ironsyde, or any other man.”

“Well, meantime, till the world’s put right by your friends, you get on with your hackling, my old bird, else you’ll have the spreaders grumbling,” answered Mr. Best.  Then he went into his home and Levi trundled the wheelbarrow to a building with a tar-pitched, penthouse roof, which stuck out from the side of the mill, like a fungus on a tree stem.

Within, before a long, low window, stood the hand dresser’s tools—­two upturned boards set with a mass of steel pins.  The larger board had tall teeth disposed openly; upon the smaller, the teeth were shorter and as dense as a hair brush.  In front of them opened a grating and above ran an endless band.  Behind this grille was an exhaust, which sucked away the dust and countless atoms of vegetable matter scattered by Levi’s activities, and the running band from above worked it.  For the authorities, he despised, considered the operations of Mr. Baggs and ordained that they should be conducted under healthy conditions.

He took his seat now before the rougher’s hackle, turned up his shirt sleeves over a pair of sinewy arms and powerful wrists and set to work.

From the mass of hemp tow he drew hanks and beat the pins with them industriously, wrenched the mass through the steel teeth again and again and separated the short fibre from the long.  Presently in his hand emerged a wisp of bright fibre, and now flogging the finer hackling board, he extracted still more short stalks and rubbish till the finished strick came clean and shining as a lock of woman’s hair.  From the hanks of long tow he seemed to bring out the tresses like magic.  In his swift hand each strick flashed out from the rough hank with great rapidity, and every crafty, final touch on the teeth made it brighter.  Giving a last flick or two over the small pins, Mr. Baggs set down his strick and soon a pile of these shining locks grew beside him, while the exhaust sucked away the rubbish and fragments, and the mass of short fibre which he had combed out, also accumulated for future treatment.

He worked with the swiftness and surety of a master craftsman, scourged his tow and snorted sometimes as he struggled with it.  He was exerting a tremendous pressure, regulated and applied with skill, and he always exulted in the thought that he, at least, of all the workers performed hand labour far more perfectly than any machine.  But still it was not the least of his many grievances that Government showed too little concern for his comfort.  He was always demanding increased precautions for purifying the air he breathed.  From first to last, indeed, the hemp and tow are shedding superfluities, and a layman is astonished to see how the broad strips and ribbons running through the machines and torn by innumerable systems of sharp teeth in transit, emerge at the last gasp of attenuation to trickle down the spindles and turn into the glory of yarn.