“I suppose you have all been told why the works are shut down—­why you are out of a job in the middle of summer; and I understand you are not fully satisfied with the reason that was given—­hard times.  You have been saying among yourselves that if the president and the treasurer could go off on a holiday trip to Europe, the situation couldn’t be so very desperate.  Isn’t that so?”

“That’s so; you’ve hit it in the head first crack out o’ the box,” was the swift reply from a score of the men.

“Good; then we’ll settle that point before we go any further.  I want to tell you men that the hard times are here, sure enough.  We are all hoping that they won’t last very long; but the fact remains that the wheels have stopped.  Let me tell you:  I’ve just come down from the North, and the streets of the cities up there are full of idle men.  All the way down here I didn’t see a single iron-furnace in blast, and those of you who have been over to South Tredegar know what the conditions are there.  Mr. Farley has gone to Europe because he believes there is nothing to be done here, and the facts are on his side.  For anybody with money enough to live on, this is a mighty good time to take a vacation.”

There was a murmur of protest, voicing itself generally in a denial of the possibility for men who wrought with their hands and ate in the sweat of their brows.

“I know that,” was Tom’s rejoinder.  “Some of us can’t afford to take a lay-off; I can’t, for one.  And that’s why we are here this afternoon.  Chiawassee can blow in again and stay in blast if we’ve all got nerve enough to hang on.  If we start up and go on making pig, it’ll be on a dead market and we’ll have to sell it at a loss or stack it in the yards.  We can’t do the first, and I needn’t tell you that it is going to take a mighty long purse to do the stacking.  It will be all outgo and no income.  If—­”

“Spit it out,” called Ludlow, from the forefront of the miners’ division.  “I reckon we all know what’s comin’.”

Gordon thrust out his square jaw and gave them the fact bluntly.

“It’s a case of half a loaf or no bread.  If Chiawassee blows in again, it will be on borrowed money.  If you men will take half-pay in cash and half in promises, the promised half to be paid when we can sell the stacked pig, we go on.  If not, we don’t.  Talk it over among yourselves and let us have your decision.”

There was hot caucusing and a fair imitation of pandemonium on the foundry floor following this bomb-hurling, and Tom sat down on the edge of the platform to give the men time.  Caleb Gordon sat within arm’s reach, nursing his knee, diligently saying nothing.  It was Tom, undoubtedly, but a Tom who had become a citizen of another world, a newer world than the one the ex-artilleryman knew and lived in.  He—­Caleb—­had freely predicted a riot as the result of the half-pay proposal; yet Tom had applied the match and there was no explosion.  The buzzing, arguing groups were not riotous—­only fiercely questioning.