"Thanks, very much, for your good opinion!" retorted the other.
"I've heard a good deal about that fellow, Roland Graeme," remarked Mr. Pomeroy, in his tone of bland patronage. "I should say he hadn't enough to do! He's been aiding and abetting the 'Knights of Labor,' in every way he can; in fact, they say he's one, himself: and they're troublesome enough, without having better educated people, who ought to know better, putting their oars in!"
"'Knights,' indeed!" echoed Mrs. Pomeroy, sarcastically, "Precious knights!"
"Why, they actually had the cheek to come and interview me, lately," said Mr. Pomeroy. "They had a whole list of grievances that they wanted remedied. Willett wouldn't have anything to say to them, so they came on to me. And I believe this Roland Graeme was at the bottom of it."
"Well, he isn't half a bad fellow," said Mr. Archer, "but he's awfully soft in some ways. A child could get round him, quicker indeed than a grown-up person," he added, half to himself. "But what did you do? Did you grant their requests?"
"Not I! There were far too many. They wanted shorter hours, and bigger pay, and half-holidays, and all the rest of it. Oh, by the way, there was one thing, Willett had been negligent about, some shafting that had been left uncovered; I had that inquired into and put right."
"Then the interview wasn't absolutely without results," remarked the elderly gentleman in the frock-coat, joining in the discussion for the first time, and speaking in a deep, guttural, Scotch voice and accent.
"Oh, I've no doubt we'd have put that all right in due time, without their interference," said the host, somewhat superciliously.
"Aye! After an accident, and an inquest, and a suit for damages," returned the Scotchman, with a dry smile and twinkle of the eye.
"Come! come! Mr. Dunlop, you have a rather bad opinion of us, I know; but for our own sakes, you know, we want to have everything right about the mills. And as for all these other things—why, if we went to pampering and coddling those people to that extent, they would think so much of themselves, that by and by they wouldn't want to work at all. Why now, if we were to do as they ask, increase their pay and shorten their hours, how could we compete with firms that went in the old way? The thing is preposterous. As it is, those people who get their pay regularly and have no care, are better off, this minute, if they only knew it, than we who have all the care and responsibility, that they know nothing about. Let me help you to a bit of partridge; you'll find it just right, I think."