'Listen!' ironically ejaculated Sam. 'He asks what our grievances are! I'll answer you, Quale. They are many and great. Are we not kept to work like beasts of burden, ten hours a day? Does that leave us time for the recreation of our wearied bodies, for the improvement of our minds, for the education of our children, for the social home intercourse in the bosoms of our families? By docking the day's labour to nine hours--or to eight, which we shall get, may be, after awhile,' added Sam, with a wink--'it would leave us the extra hour, and be a blessing.' Sam carried the admiring room with him. That hard, disbelieving Peter Quale, interrupted the cheering. 'A blessing, or the conterairy, as it might turn out,' cried he. 'It's easy to talk of education, and self-improvement; but how many is there that would use the accorded hour that way?' 'Another grievance is our wages,' resumed Sam, drowning the words, not caring to court discussion on what might be a weak point. 'We call ourselves men, and Englishmen, and yet we lie down contented with five-and-sixpence a day. Do you know what our trade gets in Australia? Oh, you do, some of you? then I'll tell those that don't. From twelve to fifteen shillings per day: and even more than that. _Twelve shillings!_ and that's the minimum rate of pay,' slowly repeated Sam, lifting up his arm and one peg-top to give emphasis to the words. A murmur of envy at the coveted rate of pay in Australia shook the room to the centre. 'But the price of provisions and other necessaries is enormous in that quarter,' debated Abel White. 'So it may come to the same in the end--be about as broad as long. Old father and me was talking about it last night.' 'If everybody went in for your old father's sentiments, we should soon be like him--in our dotage,' loftily observed Sam. 'But things are dear there,' persisted Sam's antagonist. 'I have heard what is sometimes given for shoes there; but I'm afraid to say, it was so much. The wages in Australia can't be any guide for us.' 'No, they can't,' said Peter Quale. 'Australia is one place, and this is another. Where's the use of bringing up that?' 'Oh, of course not,' sarcastically uttered Sam. 'Anything that tends to show how we are put upon, and how we might be made more comfortable, it's of no use bringing up. The long and the short of it is this: we want to be regarded as MEN: to have our voices considered, and our plaints attended to; to be put altogether upon a better footing. Little enough is it we ask at present: only for a modicum of ease in our day's hard labour, just the thin end of the wedge inserted to give it. That's all we are agitating for. It depends upon ourselves whether we get it or not. Let us display manly courage and join the strike, and it is ours to-morrow.' The response did not come so quickly as Sam deemed it ought. He went on in a persuasive, ringing tone.