Raymer began to put his desk in order.
"No, not to-night. The trouble will begin when we try to start up with a new force. Call it a weakness if you like, but I dread it, Kenneth."
Griswold's smile was a mere baring of the teeth. "That's all right, Ned; you do the dreading and I'll do the fighting," he said; adding: "What we've had to-day has merely whetted my appetite."
The man of peace shook his head dejectedly.
"I can't understand it," he protested. "Up to last night I was calling you a benevolent Socialist, and my only fear was that you might some time want to reorganize things and turn the plant into a little section of Utopia. Now you are out-heroding Herod on the other side."
Griswold got up and crushed his soft hat upon his head.
"Only fools and dead folk are denied the privilege of changing their minds," he returned. "Let's go up to the Winnebago and feed."
The dinner to which they sat down a little later was a small feast of silence. Each was busy with his own thoughts, and it was not until after the coffee had been served that Griswold leaned across the table to call Raymer's attention to a man who was finishing his meal in a distant corner of the dining-room, a swarthy-faced man who drank his coffee with the meat course to the unpleasant detriment of a pair of long drooping mustaches.
"Wait a minute before you look around, and then tell me who that fellow is over on the right—the man with the black mustaches," he directed.
Raymer looked and shook his head.