“That’s me,” said Barney Bill, nudging Paul with his elbow.  “Simmons.  You never knowed that afore, did yer?  Beg pardon, guv’nor, for interrupting.”

“Well, there’s a jug of beer—­and that is all at this hour, except water, that I can put before you.”

Paul declared that beer was delicious and peculiarly acceptable after public speaking, and demonstrated his appreciation by draining the glass which the maid poured out.

“You wanted that badly, sonny,” said Barney Bill.  “The next thing to drinking oneself is to see another chap what enjoys swallering it.”

“Bill!” said Jane reprovingly.

Barney Bill cocked his white poll across the table with the perkiness of a quaint bird—­Paul saw that the years had brought a striation of tiny red filaments to his weather-beaten face—­and fixed her with his little glittering eyes.  “Bill what?  You think I’m ’urting his feelings?” He jerked a thumb towards his host.  “I ain’t.  He thinks good drink’s bad because bad has come of it to him—­not that he ever took a drop too much, mind yer—­but bad has come of it to him, and I think good drink’s good because nothing but good has come of it to me.  And we’ve agreed to differ.  Ain’t we, Silas?”

“If every man were as moderate as you, and I am sure as Mr. Savelli, I should have nothing to say against it.  Why should I?  But the working man, unhappily, is not moderate.”

“I see,” said Paul.  “You preach, or advocate—­I think you preach—­total abstinence, and so feel it your duty to abstain yourself.”

“That is so,” said Mr. Finn, helping himself to mustard.  “I don’t wish to bore you with my concerns; but I’m a fairly large employer of labour.  Now I have found that by employing only pledged abstainers I get extraordinary results.  I exact a very high rate of insurance, towards a fund—­I need not go into details—­to which I myself contribute a percentage—­a far higher rate than would be possible if they spent their earnings on drink.  I invest the whole lot in my business—­their stoppages from wages and my contributions.  I guarantee them 3 per cent.; I give them, actually, the dividends that accrue to the holders of ordinary stock in my company.  They also have the general advantages of insurance—­ sickness, burial, maternity, and so forth—­that they would get from an ordinary benefit society.”

“But that’s enormous,” cried Paul, with keen interest.  “On the face of it, it seems impossible.  It seems entirely uneconomic.  Co-operative trading is one thing; private insurance another.  But how can you combine the two?”

“The whole secret lies in the marvellously increased efficiency of the employee.”  He developed his point.

Paul listened attentively.  “But,” said he, when his host concluded, “isn’t it rather risky?  Supposing, for the sake of argument, your business failed.”

Mr. Finn held up the lean, brown hand on which the diamond sparkled.  “My business cannot fail.”