The men hurried over their tea, or supper (some took one on leaving work for the night, some the other, some a mixture of both, and some neither), that they might attend to the invitation of Sam. Peter Quale was seated over a substantial dish of batter pudding, a bit of neck of mutton baked in the midst of it, when he was interrupted by the entrance of John Baxendale, who had stepped in from his own rooms next door.
'Be you a going to this meeting, Quale?' Baxendale asked, as he took a seat.
'I don't know nothing about it,' returned Peter. 'I saw Slippery Sam a giving out papers, so I guessed there was something in the wind. He took care to pass me over. I expect I'm the greatest eyesore Sam has got just now. Have a bit?' added Peter, unceremoniously, pointing to the dish before him with his knife.
'No, thank ye; I have just had tea at home. That's the paper'—laying it open on the table-cloth. 'Sam Shuck is just now cock-a-hoop with this strike.'
'He is no more cock-a-hoop than the rest of Daffodil's Delight is,' struck in Mrs. Quale, who had finished her own meal, and was at leisure to talk. 'The men and women is all a going mad together, I think, and Slippery Sam's leading 'em on. Suppose you all do strike—which is what they are hankering after—what good 'll it bring?'
'That's just it,' replied Baxendale. 'One can't see one's way clear. The agitation might do us some good, but it might do us a deal of harm; so that one doesn't know what to be at. Quale, I'll go to the meeting, if you will?'
'If I go, it will be to give 'em a piece of my mind,' retorted Peter.
'Well, it's only right that different sides should be heard. Sam 'll have it all his own way else.'
'He'll manage to get that, by the appearance things wears,' said Mrs. Quale, wrathfully. 'How you men can submit to be led by such a fellow as him, just because his tongue is capable of persuading you that black's white, is a marvel to me. Talk of women being soft! let the men talk of theirselves. Hold up a finger to 'em, and they'll go after it: like the Swiss cows Peter read of the other day, a flocking in a line after their leader, behind each other's tails.'