'They can't fill their yards with other operatives,' returned Shuck. 'Where's the use of talking nonsense?' 'But they can. They are doing it.' 'They are not. They have just got a sprinkling of men for show--not many. Where are they to get them from?' 'Do you know what I heard? That Mr. Henry Hunter has been over to Belgium, and one or two of the other masters have also been, and----' 'There's no fear of the Beljim workmen,' interrupted Ryan. 'What English master 'ud employ them half-starved frogs?' 'I heard that Mr. Henry Hunter was quite thunderstruck at their skill,' continued Darby, paying no attention to the interruption. Their tools are bad: they are not to be called tools, compared to ours; but they turn out finished work. Their decorative work is beautiful. Mr. Henry Hunter put the question to them, whether they would like to come to England and earn five-and-sixpence per day, instead of three shillings as they do there, and they jumped at it. He told them that perhaps he might be sending for them.' 'Where did you bear that fine tale?' asked Slippery Sam?' 'It's going about among us. I dare say you have heard it also, Shuck. Mr. Henry was away somewhere for nine or ten days.' 'Let 'em come, them Beljicks,' sneered Ryan. 'Maybe they'd go back with their heads off. It couldn't take much to split the skull of them French beggars.' 'Not when an Irishman holds the stick,' cried Mrs. Quale, looking the man steadily in the face, as she left the palings. Ryan watched her away, and resumed. 'How dare the masters think of taking on forringers? Leaving us to starve!' 'The preventing of it lies with us,' said Darby. 'If we go back to work, there'll be no room for them.' 'Listen, Darby,' rejoined Shuck, in a persuasive tone of confidence, the latter in full force, now that his enemy, Mrs. Quale, had gone. 'The bone of contention is the letting us work nine hours a day instead of ten: well, why should they not accord it? Isn't there every reason why they should? Isn't there men, outsiders, willing to work a full day's work, but can't get it? This extra hour, thrown up by us, would give employment to them. Would the masters be any the worse off?' 'They say they'd be the hour's wages out of pocket.' 'Flam!' ejaculated Sam. 'It would come out of the public's pocket, not out of the masters'. They would add so much the more on to their contracts, and nobody would be the worse. It's just a dogged feeling of obstinacy that's upon 'em; it's nothing else. They'll come-to in the end, if you men will only let them; they can't help doing it. Hold out, hold out, Darby! If we are to give into them now, where has been the use of this struggle? Haven't you waited for it, and starved for it, and hoped for it?' 'Very true,' replied Darby, feeling in a perplexing maze of indecision.