“And why should I be asked to pull tons less of solid weight?  What’s the matter with this?”

He thrust out his right arm with hypertrophied muscles hard as steel.

“It seems to me that a time’s coming when the people won’t want muscles any more,” he said.  “Steam has lowered our strength standards as it is, and presently labour will be called to do no more than press buttons in the midst of a roaring hell of machines.  The people won’t want no more strength than a daddy-long-legs; they that do the work will shrink away till they’re gristle and bones, like grasshoppers.  And the next thing will be that they’ll not be wanted either, but all will be done by just a handful of skilled creatures, that can work the machines from their desks, as easy as the organist plays the organ in church.  God help the human frame then!”

“We shall never arrive at that, be sure,” answered Best; “for that’s to exalt the dumb material above the worker, and if things were reduced to such a pitch of perfection all round, there would be no need of large populations.  But we’re told to increase and multiply at the command of God, so you needn’t fear machines will ever lower our power to do so.  If that happened, it would be as much as to say God allowed us to produce something to our own undoing.”

“He allows us to produce a fat lot of things to our own undoing,” answered the hackler.  “Ain’t Nature under God’s direction?”

“Without doubt, Levi.”

“And don’t Nature tickle us to our own undoing morning, noon, and night?  Ain’t she always at it—­always tempting us to go too far along the road of our particular weakness?  And ain’t laziness the particular weakness of all women and most men?  ’Tis pandering to laziness, these machines, and for my part I wish Ironsyde would get a machine to hackle once and for all.  Then I’d leave him and go where they still put muscles above machinery.”

“Funny you should say that,” answered the foreman.  “He’s had the thought of your retirement in his mind for a good bit now.  Only consideration for your feelings has prevented him dropping a hint.  He always likes it to come from us, rather than him, when anybody falls out.”

Mr. Baggs took this with tolerable calm.

“I’ll think of it next year,” he said.  “If I could get at him by a side wind as to the size of the pension—­”

“That’s hid with him.  He’ll follow his father’s rule, you may be sure, and reward you according to your deserts.”

“I don’t expect that,” said Mr. Baggs.  “He don’t know my deserts.”

“Well, I shouldn’t be in any great hurry for your own sake,” advised Best.  “You’re well and hard, and can do your work as it should be done; but you must remember you’ve got no resources outside your hackling shop.  Take you away from it and you’re a blank.  You never read a book, or go out for a walk, or even till your allotment ground.  All you do is to sit at home and criticise other people.  In fact, you’re a very ignorant old man, Baggs, and if you retired, you’d find life hang that heavy on your hands you’d hardly know how to kill time between meals.  Then you’d get fat and eat too much and shorten your days.  I’ve known it to happen, where a man who uses his muscles gives up work before his flesh fails him.”