'Sam Shuck is safe for some months to come.'
'But there's others of his persuasion that are not, sir. And Sam, he'll be out some time.'
'Quale, I give the hands credit for better sense than to suffer themselves to fall under his yoke again, now that he has shown himself in his true colours.'
'I don't give 'em credit for any sense at all, when they get unsettled notions into their heads,' phlegmatically returned Peter Quale. 'I'd like to know if it's the Union that's helping Shuck's wife and children.'
'Do they help her?'
'There must be some that help her, sir. The woman lives and feeds her family. But there was a Trades' Union secretary here this morning, inquiring about all this disturbance there has been, and saying that the men were wrong to be led to violence by such a fellow as Sam Shuck: over eager to say it, he seemed to me. I gave him my opinion back again,' concluded Peter, pushing the pipe, which he had laid aside at his young master's entrance, further under the grate. 'That Sam Shuck, and such as he, that live by agitation, were uncommon 'cute for their own interests, and those that listen to them were fools. That took him off, sir.'
'To think of the fools this Daffodil's Delight has turned out this last six months!' Mrs. Quale emphatically added. 'To have lived upon their clothes and furniture, their saucepans and kettles, their bedding and their children's shoes; when they might, most of 'em, have earned thirty-three shillings a week at their ordinary work! When folks can be so blind as that, it is of no use talking to them: black looks white, and white black.' Mr. Clay smiled at the remark, though it had some rough reason in it, and went out. Taking his way to Mr. Hunter's.
'Austin! You must live with me.'
The words came from Mr. Hunter. Seated in his easy chair, apparently asleep, he had overheard what Austin was saying in an undertone to Florence—that he had just been giving Mrs. Quale notice, and should begin house-hunting on the morrow. They turned to him at the remark. He had half risen from his chair in his eager earnestness.
'Do you think I could spare Florence? Where my home is, yours and hers must be. Is not this house large enough for us? Why should you seek another?'