“The Norwegian gentleman is here, and will help you into the kitchen, John,” said the wife, beginning to swathe him in blankets. “Thank you, sir,” said the man gratefully. “It’s just a fancy I’ve got to die in there by the fire, though I doubt I’ll never get warm any more.” Frithiof carried him in gently and set him down in a cushioned chair drawn close to the fire; he seemed pleased by the change of scene, and looked round the tidy little room with brightening eyes. “It’s a nice little place!” he said. “I wish I could think you would keep it together, Bessie, but with the four children you’ll have a hard struggle to live.” For the first time she broke down and hid her face in her apron. A look of keen pain passed over the face of the dying man, he clinched and unclinched his hands. But Sigrid, who was rocking the baby on the other side of the hearth, bent forward and spoke to him soothingly. “Don’t you trouble about that part of it,” she said. “We will be her friends. Though we are poor yet there are many ways in which we can help her, and I know a lady who will never let her want.” He thanked her with a gratitude that was pathetic. “I’m in a burial club,” he said, after a pause, stretching out his nerveless fingers toward the fire; “she’ll have no expenses that way; they’ll bury me very handsome, which’ll be a satisfaction to her, poor girl. I’ve often thought of it when I saw a well-to-do looking funeral pass alongside the tram, but I never thought it would come as soon as this. I’m only going in thirty-five, which isn’t no great age for a man.” “The work was too much for you,” said Frithiof. “Yes, sir, it’s the truth you speak, and there’s many another in the same boat along with me. It’s a cruel hard life. But then, you see, I was making my four-and-six a day, and if I gave up I knew it meant starvation for the wife and the children; there is thousands out of work, and that makes a man think twice before giving in—spite of the long hours.” “And he did get six shillings a day at one time,” said the wife looking up, “but the company’s cruel hard, sir, and just because he had a twopence in his money and no ticket to account for its being there they lowered him down to four-and-six again.” “Yes, that did seem to me hard; I’ll not deny, I swore a bit that day,” said Hallifield. “But the company never treats us like men, it treats us like slaves. They might have known me to be honest and careful, but it seems as if they downright liked to catch a fellow tripping, and while that’s so there’s many that’ll do their best to cheat.” “But is nothing being done to shorten the hours, to make people understand how frightful they are?” asked Sigrid.