“Well, he earned his money, I suppose,” Andrew said, slowly, “and I suppose it’s for him to say what he’ll do with it.”

“Earned his money?  He didn’t earn his money,” cried Nahum Beals.  “We earned it, every dollar of it, by the sweat of our brows, and it’s for us, not him, to say what shall be done with it.  Well, the time will come, I tell ye, the time will come.”

“We sha’n’t see it,” said Joe Atkins.

“It may come sooner than you think,” said Nahum.  Then Nahum Beals, with a sudden access of bitterness, broke in.  “Look at Norman Lloyd,” he cried, “havin’ that great house, and horses and carriages, and dressin’ like a dude, and his wife rustlin’ in silks so you can hear her comin’ a mile off, and shinin’ like a jeweller’s window—­look at ’em all—­all the factory bosses—­livin’ like princes on the money we’ve earned for ’em; and look at their relations, and look at the rich folks that ain’t never earned a cent, that’s had money left ’em.  Go right up and down the Main Street, here in this city.  See the Lloyds and the Maguires and the Marshalls and the Risleys and the Lennoxes—­”

“There ain’t none of the Lennoxes left except that one woman,” said Andrew.

“Well, look at her.  There she is without chick or child, rollin’ in riches, and Norman Lloyd’s her own brother-in-law.  Why don’t she give him a little money to run the factory this winter, so you and me won’t have to lose everythin’?”

“I suppose she’s got a right to do as she pleases with her own,” said Andrew.

“I tell you she ain’t,” shouted Nahum.  “She ain’t the one to say, ‘It’s the Lord, and He’s said it.’  Cynthia Lennox and all the women like her are the oppressors of the poor.  They are accursed in the sight of the Lord, as were those women we read about in the Old Testament, with their mantles and crisping-pins.  Their low voices and their silk sweeps and their shrinkin’ from touchin’ shoulders with their fellow-beings in a crowd don’t alter matters a mite.”

“Now, Nahum,” cried Jim Tenny, with one of his sudden turns of base when his sense of humor was touched, “you don’t mean to say that you want Cynthia Lennox to give you her money?”

“I’d die, and see her dead, before I’d touch a dollar of her money!” cried Nahum—­“before I’d touch a dollar of her money or anything that was bought with her money, her money or any other rich person’s.  I want what I earn.  I don’t want a gift with a curse on it.  Let her keep her fine things.  She and her kind are responsible for all the misery of the poor on the face of the earth.”

“Seems to me you’re reasonin’ in a circle, Nahum,” Andrew said, good-humoredly.

“Look here, Andrew, if you’re on the side of the rich, why don’t you say so?” cried Eva.

“He ain’t,” returned Fanny—­“you know better, Eva Loud.”

“No, I ain’t,” declared Andrew.  “You all of you know I’m with the class I belong to; I ain’t a toady to no rich folks; I don’t think no more of ’em than you do, and I don’t want any favors of ’em—­all I want is pay for my honest work, and that’s an even swap, and I ain’t beholden, but I want to look at things fair and square.  I don’t want to be carried away because I’m out of work, though, God knows, it’s hard enough.”