"And don't Nature tickle us to our own undoing morning, noon, and night? Ain't she always at it—always tempting us to go too far along the road of our particular weakness? And ain't laziness the particular weakness of all women and most men? 'Tis pandering to laziness, these machines, and for my part I wish Ironsyde would get a machine to hackle once and for all. Then I'd leave him and go where they still put muscles above machinery."
"Funny you should say that," answered the foreman. "He's had the thought of your retirement in his mind for a good bit now. Only consideration for your feelings has prevented him dropping a hint. He always likes it to come from us, rather than him, when anybody falls out."
Mr. Baggs took this with tolerable calm.
"I'll think of it next year," he said. "If I could get at him by a side wind as to the size of the pension—"
"That's hid with him. He'll follow his father's rule, you may be sure, and reward you according to your deserts."
"I don't expect that," said Mr. Baggs. "He don't know my deserts."
"Well, I shouldn't be in any great hurry for your own sake," advised Best. "You're well and hard, and can do your work as it should be done; but you must remember you've got no resources outside your hackling shop. Take you away from it and you're a blank. You never read a book, or go out for a walk, or even till your allotment ground. All you do is to sit at home and criticise other people. In fact, you're a very ignorant old man, Baggs, and if you retired, you'd find life hang that heavy on your hands you'd hardly know how to kill time between meals. Then you'd get fat and eat too much and shorten your days. I've known it to happen, where a man who uses his muscles gives up work before his flesh fails him."
Raymond Ironsyde joined them at this juncture and presently, when Levi went back to his shop and the Hemp Breaker had been duly applauded, the master took John Best aside and discussed a private matter.
"The boy has come back for his holidays," he said; and Best, who knew that when Raymond spoke of 'the boy' he meant Sabina's son, nodded.
"I hope all goes well with him and that you hear good accounts," he answered.