"Are there any terms at all connected with this little subscription?"
"None," Beldeman replied.
"And your object," Maraton added, "is to benefit through our loss of trade?"
"Entirely," Mr. Beldeman assented, without a quiver upon his face.
Maraton was silent for a moment.
"I do not see my way absolutely clear," he announced, "to recommending a railway strike at the present moment. If I acceded to all the others, what would your position be? The railway strike is of little consequence to a foreign nation. The coal strike, and the iron and steel works of Sheffield and Leeds closed—that's where English trade would suffer most, especially if the cotton people came out."
Mr. Beldeman shook his head slowly. "My conditions," he said, "embrace the railways."
"Somehow, I fancied that they would," Maraton remarked. "Tell me why?"
Beldeman rose slowly to his feet.
"Are you an Englishman?" he asked.