Bonbright was silent a moment.  When he spoke it was not in reply to Lightener’s question, but to put into words a fear that had become apparent.

“The men,” he said; “how about them?...You know, father sort of advertised me as a strike breaker and that kind of thing.  Our men hate me.  I suppose all laboring men feel that way about me.”

“We don’t have any unions here.  I run my own plant, and, by gracious!  I always will.  I give my men fair pay—­better than most.  I give them all the opportunity they ask for.  I give them the best and safest conditions to work in that can be had.  I figure a good crew in a plant is a heap more valuable than good machinery—­and I keep my machinery in repair and look after it mighty careful.  But no union nonsense. ...  You won’t have any trouble with the men.”

Bonbright was not so sure. ...  Presently the boy returned with the overalls.  Lightener wrote a note and handed it to the boy.  “Take this man to Shop One and give this note to Maguire,” he said; then he turned to Bonbright and jerked his thumb toward the door.  Bonbright got up without a word and followed the boy.

In a moment the boy opened a big door, and Bonbright stepped through.  The sight took away his breath—­not that he had never seen this room before, but that he was now seeing it through other eyes, not merely as a spectator, but as a participant.  It seemed to him as if the dimensions of the room should be measured not in feet, but in acres.  It was enormous, but huge as it was it was all too small for the tangle of machinery it contained.  To Bonbright’s eyes it seemed a tangle.  A labyrinth of shafting, countershafting, hung from the high ceiling, from whose whirring pulleys belts descended to rows upon rows of machines below.  It looked like some strange sort of lunar forest, or some species of monstrous, magic banyan tree.  Here were machines of a hundred uses and shapes, singly, in batteries—­a scrambled mass it seemed.  There were small machines—­and in the distance huge presses, massive, their very outlines speaking of gigantic power.  Bonbright had seen sheets of metal fed into them, to be spewed out at another point bent and molded to a desired form.  Overhead conveyers increased the scrambled appearance.  Men with trucks, men on hurried errands, hurried here and there; other men stood silently feeding hungry contrivances—­men were everywhere, engrossed in their work, paving scant attention to anything outside their task.  And rushing up to Bonbright was a wave of composite sounds, a roar, a bellow, a shriek, a rattle, a whir, a grind. ...  It seemed the ultimate possibility of confusion.