Jack had hardly planned for the enforced idleness. He did not want to go home and read, he could not call on Sylvie thus early in the morning, neither did he feel in the humor for argument with any of the men. So he stopped at the door of a small office, and turned the knob rather hesitatingly.
"Hillo, Darcy, is that you? Come in, come in! Sullen gray day, isn't it? Off on a strike, eh?"
Jack laughed,—the sound with no real music in it, the sort of lip-service merely.
"Come in, old fellow; don't be afraid. I've neither pistol nor bludgeon, and I'll promise to treat you civilly."
The man's accents were clear and curt, with a certain ring of out-door freshness,—a capital voice to travel with up mountain-sides and through forests. The face, too, indicated a kind of joyous strength; for the blue eyes were merry and baffling, the laughing lips a brilliant scarlet, the nose neither Grecian nor aquiline, but slightly retroussé; a bronze moustache with long curling ends that were undeniably red, and hair a little darker, slightly curling as well. A broad-shouldered man with the deep breathing of intense vitality; healthy nerves that could enjoy laziness to the full, as well as a brisk walk across the country.
A glance at the interior showed the place to be a doctor's office. On one side a long case with glass doors above and drawers underneath, filled with bottles and books and papers, perhaps in not the most systematic order; at the farther end a fire in an open-front stove; a luxurious Turkish lounge covered with russet leather, and a bright wool blanket thrown carelessly over it; several capacious armchairs; and in one, with his legs stretched out on another, sat Dr. Philip Maverick, eight and twenty or thirty years old, perhaps.
"How nice and cosey you are! I really did not know what to do with myself. Yes, we are all on a strike, I am sorry to say."
"Bad time," and Maverick shook his head. "What's the prospect? Have a cigar."
"The prospect is that the weakest goes to the wall, of course," answered Jack. "Maverick, I am dreadfully muddled on this point. I have thought of it all the week. It is hard on the men. I know the general advice is to economize more closely, but how can you do it just at the beginning of winter? One cannot move to a cheaper tenement, fire and lights cost more, and provision is a little dearer. Low living in winter does not conduce to a healthy state in the spring. Then, on the other hand, if they are going to make such sales as they did last month, they cannot pay the wages, and realize what they consider a fair profit. But why shouldn't the Lawrences and the Eastmans and many others give up something, as well?"