remained silent.

“Don’t you think so, Banks?”

“Well, you see, ma’am, he’s a bit arbitrary.”

“Arbitrary? What do you mean, Banks?”

“Well, you see, ma’am, he turned Sim Slee off at a moment’s notice.”

“And quite right, too,” said Mrs Glaire hotly. “My son told me. The fellow is a spouting, mouthing creature.”

“He is that, ma’am, and as lazy as a slug, but it made matters worse, and just now there’s a deal of strikes about, and the men at other places listening to delegates from societies, and joining unions, and all that sort of stuff.”

“And have you joined one of those clubs, Joe Banks?” said Mrs Glaire, sharply.

“Me join ’em, ma’am? Not I,” said Banks, who seemed immensely tickled at the idea. “Not I. I’m foreman, and get my wage reg’lar, and I don’t want none of their flummery. You should hear Ann go on about ’em.”

“I beg your pardon, Banks,” said Mrs Glaire. “I might have known that you were too sensible a man to go to these meetings.”

“Well, as to being sensible, I don’t know about that, Missus Glaire. Them two women folk at home do about what they like wi’ me.”

“I don’t believe it, Joe,” said Mrs Glaire. “Daisy would not have grown up such a good, sensible girl if she had not had a firm, kind, sensible father.”

“God bless her!” said Joe, and a little moisture appeared in one eye. Then speaking rather huskily—“Thank you, ma’am—thank you, Missus Glaire. I try to do my duty by her, and so does Ann.”

“Is Ann quite well?”

“Quite well, thank you kindly, ma’am,” said the foreman. “Don’t you be afeared for me, Missus Glaire. I worked with Richard Glaire, senior, thirty years ago, two working lads, and we was always best of friends both when we was poor, and when I saw him gradually grow rich, for he had a long head, had your husband, while I’d only got a square one. But I stuck to him, and he stuck to me, and when he died, leaving me his foreman, you know, Mrs Glaire, how he sent for me, and ‘Joe,’ he says, ‘good bye, God bless you! You’ve always been my right hand man. Stick to my son.’”

“He did, Joe, he did,” said Mrs Glaire, with a deep sigh, and a couple of tears fell on her knitting.

“And I’ll stick to him through thick and thin,” said the foreman, stoutly. “For I never envied Dick, his father—there, ’tain’t ’spectful to you, ma’am, to say Dick, though it comes natural—I never envied Master Glaire his success with his contracts, and getting on to be a big man. I was happy enough; but you know, ma’am, young Master Dick is arbitrary; he is indeed, and he can’t feel for a working man like his father did.”

“He is more strict you see, Banks, that is all,” said Mrs Glaire, stiffly; and the foreman screwed up his face a little.

“You advise him not to be quite so strict, ma’am. I wouldn’t advise you wrong, as you know.”

“I know that, Joe Banks,” said Mrs Glaire, smiling pleasantly; “and I’ll say a word to him. But I wanted to say something to you.”

“Well, I’ve been a wondering why you sent for me, ma’am,” said the foreman, bluntly.

“You see,” said Mrs Glaire, hesitating, “there are little bits of petty tattle about.”

“What, here, ma’am,” said the foreman, with a hearty laugh. “Of course there is, and always was, and will be.”

“But they are about Daisy,” said Mrs Glaire, dashing at last into the matter.

“I should just like to get hold of the man as said a word against my lass,” said Banks, stretching out a tremendous fist. “I’d crack him, I would, like a nut. But what have they been saying?”