"He lost his place where he lived before by a strike."
"A striker, is he! Well, please excuse me. I have a plenty of that sort now without going outside to drag them in."
"No—no—no—" exclaimed Eleanor. "My! How you do talk! You won't give me a chance to say a word!"
"I like that," laughed her father. "Here I have been listening patiently to a catalogue of the virtues of a man I never heard of and simply asking questions, and as soon as I put in a pertinent one, away you go."
"Well, listen. You have heard of him. I'll tell you who he is. You remember my telling you of the poor family that was on the train last year when I came back in Aunt Sophia's car and we delayed the train?"
"I remember something about it. I never was sure as to the facts in the case. I only know that that paper contained a most infamous and lying attack on me——"
"I know it—it was simply infamous—but this poor man had nothing to do with it. That was his family, and they came on to join him because he had gotten a place. But the Union turned him out because he didn't belong to it, and then he wanted to join the Union, but the walking-delegate or something would not let him, and now he has been out of work so long that they are simply starving."
"You want some money, I suppose?" Mr. Leigh put his hand in his pocket.
"No. I have helped him, but he isn't a beggar—he wants work. He's the real thing, Dad, and I feel rather responsible, because Aunt Sophia turned them out of the house they had rented and—though that young lawyer I told you of won his case for him and saved his furniture—the little bit he had—he has lost it all through the loan-sharks who eat up the poor. I tried to get Aunt Sophia to make her man, Gillis, let up on him, but she wouldn't interfere."
"That's strange, for she is not an unkind woman—she is only hard set in certain ways which she calls her principles."