“In the first place,” Peter Dale began, “we’ve no wish to commence this meeting with any unpleasantness.  At the same time, Mr. Maraton, we did think that after that letter of ours you’d have seen your way clear to come up to London and cut short that visit to Mr. Foley.  We were all there waiting for you, and there were some of us that didn’t take it altogether in what I might call a favourable spirit, that you chose to keep away.”

“To tell you the truth,” Maraton replied calmly, “I did not see the faintest reason why I should shorten my visit to Mr. Foley.  We had arranged to meet here to-day and that seemed to me to be quite sufficient.”

Peter Dale tugged at his beard for a moment.

“I am not wishful,” he reiterated, “to commence a discussion which might lead to disagreement between us.  We’ll drop the matter for the present.  Is that agreeable to everybody?”

There was a little murmur of assent.  Graveling only was stolidly silent.  Peter Dale struck the table with his fist.

“Now then, lads,” he said, “let’s get on with it.”

“This being mainly my show,” John Henneford declared, “I’ll come and sit at your right hand, Mr. Maraton.  You’ve got all the papers I’ve sent you about the cotton workers?”

“I have looked them through,” Maraton replied, “but most of their contents were familiar to me.  I made a study of the condition of all your industries so far as I could, last year.”

“Between you and me,” Peter Dale grumbled, “this meeting ought to have been held in Newcastle and not Manchester.  These cotton chaps of yours, Henneford, ain’t doing so badly.  It’s my miners that want another leg up.”

Henneford struck the table with his fist.

“Rot!” he exclaimed.  “Your miners have just had a turn.  Half-a-crown a week extra, and a minimum wage—­what more do you want?  And a piece of plate and a nice fat cheque for Mr. Dale,” he added, turning to the others and winking.

Peter Dale beamed good-humouredly upon them.

“Well,” he retorted, “I earned it.  You fellows should organise in the same way.  It took me a good many years’ hard work, I can tell you, to bring my lot up to the scratch.  Anyway, here we are, and Manchester it’s got to be this time.  In an hour, Mr. Maraton, the secretary of the Manchester Labour Party will be here.  He’s got two demand scales made out for you to look through.  Your job is to work the people up so that they drop their tools next Saturday night.”

“There was an idea,” Maraton reminded them quietly, “that I should speak to-night not only to the operatives of Manchester but to Labour throughout the Empire; that I should make a pronouncement which should have in it something of a common basis for all industries—­which would, in short, unsettle Labour in every great centre.”

They all looked a little blank.  Henneford shook his head.

“It can’t be done,” he affirmed.  “One job at a time’s our way.  You’re going to speak to cotton to-night, and we want the mills emptied by the end of the week.  We’ve got a scheme amongst the Unions, as you know, for helping one another, and as soon as we ye finished with cotton, then we’ll go for iron.”