"Simon Bond's strong hands grasped Stephen's ear and collar." [Page 32.]
ARCHIE'S MISTAKE.
"Father, why do you have such a beggarly-looking hand at the mill as that young Bennett?" asked Archie Fairfax of the great mill-owner of Longcross.
"Why shouldn't I?" he replied. "He comes with an excellent character from the foreman he has been under at Morfield. He does his work very well, Munster says, and that's all I care for. I don't pay for his clothes."
Archie said no more, but he still felt aggrieved. As a rule, his father's work-people were a superior, tidy-looking set, but this new lad was literally in rags, and his worn, haggard face and great, hungry-looking eyes seemed, in Archie's mind, to bring discredit on the cotton-mill.
"He's no business here," he said to himself.—"I wish you'd send him away."
Archie had only lately had anything to do with the mill, as he had been at a large public school. But now he was eighteen, and had left school. He had come into his father's office as secretary, that he might learn a little about the business which was to be his some day.
Mr. Fairfax had some excuse for the pride he took in his manufactory, for a better looked after, better managed, or more prosperous one it would have been difficult to find, though of course there were some rough people among the workers. Long experience had taught his work-people to respect and trust an employer who acted justly and honourably in every transaction; and it was Mr. Fairfax's boast that there had never yet been a "strike" among his men, nor any difficulty about work or wages which had not been settled at last in a friendly spirit.