“It is true,” Mr. Docker answered.  “Are you afraid of that?”

The man hesitated.

“I don’t know as ‘afraid’ is exactly the word,” he said, “but I don’t fancy being out of work for a month or so, and perhaps losing my job at the end of it.  Fifteen bob a week from the Union won’t keep my little lot.”

There was a murmur of applause.  Docker pointed with threatening forefinger to the man who had just sat down.

“It’s the likes of him,” he declared, “who keep down wages, who make slaves of us!  The likes of him, who haven’t the pluck to ask for what they might get at any time!”

He plunged into facts and figures, and Maraton more than once yawned.  He seemed to find more interest in watching the faces of the audience than in listening to the stock arguments which were being thrown at their heads.  A little cloud of tobacco smoke hung about the room.  There were few women present, and most of the men were smoking.  On the whole they were a very earnest gathering.  There were very few there who were not deeply interested.  Julia was listening to every word, her head resting upon her hand, her lips a little parted, her eyes full of smouldering fires.  At the end of Docker’s speech, one of the Union officials got up on his feet.  It was for the men themselves to decide, he said.  They had subscribed the money; it was for them to say whether it should be used.  Was the moment propitious for a blow on behalf of their rights?  If they thought so, then let it be war.  If they asked for his advice, they were welcome to it.  His advice was to fight.  The masters had refused their reasonable ultimatum.  Let the masters try and carry out their contracts without work people!  That was his way of looking at it.

There was a rumble of applause.  The militants were certainly in the majority.  A man got up from one of the front rows.

“I propose,” he said, “that we strike to-morrow.  They are working us as hard as they can in shifts on special jobs now, in case they should get left.  Every hour we work makes it better for them.  I say ‘Strike!’”

There was a thunder of applause.  A ballot box was brought and placed on a table in front of the platform.

“They will strike,” Aaron muttered,—­“three thousand of them!  Splendid!”

Maraton shook his head.

“It is piecemeal work, this.  They do not understand.”

“They do not understand what?” Julia asked him, turning her head swiftly.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“They will ask for five shillings a week more and get half-a-crown,” he said.  “Half-a-crown a week!  What difference can it make?  Do you know what Boulding’s put on one side for distribution to their shareholders last year?—­what they put to their reserve fund?  Why, it was a fortune!”

A man from somewhere at the back of the hall climbed on to a seat to get a better view and suddenly pointed out Maraton to his neighbours.  A little murmur arose from the vicinity.  Some one mentioned his name.  The cry was taken up from the other side of the hall.