“No. You know we couldn’t work eight batteries with one small shift.”
“Well, you’ve got to have an assistant millman at the union scale, you know,” insisted the delegate.
“What to do? To loaf around, I suppose,” Bill retorted.
“And you’ve got to have a turn up in the 176 engine-house. You need another hoisting engineer,” continued the delegate, as if all these matters had been decided by him beforehand.
Dick thought that he might gain a more friendly footing by taking part in the conversation himself.
“See here,” he said. “The Croix d’Or isn’t paying interest. Maybe we aren’t using the requisite number of men as demanded under this rating; but they are all satisfied, and–––”
“I don’t know about that,” interrupted the delegate, with an air of insolent assurance.
“And if we can’t go on under the present conditions, we may as well shut down,” Dick concluded.
“That’s up to you,” declared the delegate, with an air of disinterest. “If a mine can’t pay for the working, it ought to shut down.”
The partners looked at each other. There was a mutual question as to whether it would be policy to throw the delegate out of the door. Plainly they were in a predicament, for the man was master, in his way.