"Yes—I thought I might need him," she said.
I did not talk to her father of Joe—his plans for a strike were his secret, not mine. But with Eleanore pushing me on, I described the hell I had seen in the stokehole.
"You're right, it's hell," her father agreed. "But in time we'll do away with it."
"I knew it," Eleanore put in.
"How?" I asked.
"By using oil instead of coal. Or if we can't get oil cheap enough by automatic stokers—machines to do the work of men."
I thought hard and fast for a moment, and suddenly I realized that I had never given any real thought to matters of this kind before.
"Then what will become of the stokers?" I asked him.
"One thing at a time." I caught Dillon keenly watching me over his cigar. "Don't give up your faith in efficiency, Bill. If they'll only give us time enough we'll be able to do so much for men."
There was something so big and sincere in his voice and in his clear and kindly eyes.