"It's not hard to answer, Poole. The proofs, lie on the surface; not one of you but may read 'em off-hand. It threw you all out of good work that you had held for years under a good master, that you might probably have held, to the last day of your lives. It dismantled your homes and sent your things to the pawnshop. It has reduced you to a crust of bread, where you used to have good joints of beef; it has taken your warm shoes and coats, and sent you abroad half naked. Your children are starving, some of them are dead; your wives are worn out with trouble and discontent. And this not for a time, but for good: for, there's no prospect open to you. No prospect, that I can see, as I am a living woman. That's what your friends, as you call 'em, have done for you; and for thousands and thousands beside you. I don't care what they meant: let it be that they meant well by you, and that you meant well--as I'm sure you did--in listening to 'em: the result is as I've said. And you are standing here this day, ruined men." Mr. Poole looked fierce. "What is to become of you, and of others ruined like you, the Lord in heaven only knows. It's a solemn question. When the best trade of the country's driven from it, there's no longer any place for workmen. Emigration, suggest some of the newspapers. Others say emigration's overdone for the present. We don't know what to believe. Any way, it's a hard thing that a good workman should find no employment in his native land, but must be packed off, very much as if he was transported, to be an exile for ever." Poole, not liking the picture, broke into an oath or two. The other men looked sad enough. "You have been drinking, Poole," said Mrs. Gass with dignity, "Keep a civil tongue in your head before me if, you please." "I've not had no more than half-a-pint," growled Poole. "And that was half-a-pint too much," said Mrs. Gass. "When people's insides are reduced by famine, half-a-pint is enough to upset their brains in a morning." "What business have Richard North to go and engage them frogs o' Frenchmen?" demanded Poole who had in truth taken too much for his good. "What business have them other fellows, as ought to have stuck by us, to go back to him? It's Richard North as wants to be transported." "Richard North was a good master to you. The world never saw a better." "He's a rank bad man now." "No, no--hold th' tongue!" put in Ketler. "No good to abuse _him_."