"A young fellow named Charlie Maxon."
"Charlie Maxon! Well, he'll be no loss to the community for a month!"
"Aye?" Janet looked up sharply from her work. "Ye know him?"
"He's one of the leaders of the strike. I've spoken with him once or twice. A bad egg, I should think."
"Aye, and his parents before him," said Janet Mackay. "They used to live around the corner from me in Aberdeen. I can remember Charlie as a bairn, and even then he was always into mischief. He's no whit better now."
"And he turns up again in this little out-of-the-way place in America! I see now why you say the world's a small one. Queer, but it's the way things sometimes happen. Are you sure it's the same?"
"Aye. Three times I've seen him in town and thought his face familiar, he looks so like his father. When Bates spoke his name, I knew."
"Well, I take it you won't remind him of the old times in bonnie Scotland!"
"No fear!" said the older woman promptly. Then she looked keenly at her mistress. "Aren't ye up early to-night?"
"Simon is having a row with Copley in the study." Miss Ocky shrugged her shoulders and made a grimace. "I didn't care to listen any longer."