Hilmer rested both hands on the white cloth. They were shapely hands in spite of their size, with healthy pink nails, except on a thumb and forefinger, which had been badly mangled. "For five years you have worked seven hours every day on this routine ... and in order to enlarge your capacity and skill and knowledge you have worked many hours overtime on this same routine, I suppose without any extra pay... It seems to me that a man who only gets a chance to exercise with dumb-bells might keep in condition, but he'd hardly grow more skillful... Of course, that still leaves two theories intact--working for your own advancement ... and the interest of your firm. I suppose the advancement _has_ come, I suppose you've been paid for your overtime ... in increased salary." Helen made a scornful movement. "If you call an increase of ten dollars a month in two years an advancement," she ventured, bitterly. Starratt flushed. "That leaves only one excuse for overtime. And that excuse is usually a lie. Why should you have the interest of your firm at heart when it does nothing for you beyond what it is forced to do?" Fred Starratt bared his teeth in sudden snapping anger. "Well, and what do _you_ do, Mr. Hilmer, for your clerks?" "Nothing ... absolutely nothing ... unless they demand it. And even then it's only the exceptional man who can force me into a corner. The average clerk in any country is like a gelded horse. He's been robbed of his power by education ... of a sort. He's a reasonable, rational, considerate beast that can be broken to any harness." "What do you want us to do? Go on a strike and heave bricks into your plate-glass window?... What would you do in our place?"