Mr. Arthurs' immense energy and his devotion to his work and his extraordinary pride not only in the shipyard but in the men who worked in it had made a deep impression on Marsh and Henry. He seemed to know the most minute details of the vast complication of functions that operated throughout the works. While they were passing through one of the shops, a horn had blown, and instantly a great crowd of men and lads had poured out of the yard on their way to their dinner, and Mr. Arthurs, standing aside to watch them, and greeting here one and there another, turned to Marsh and said, "Those are my pals!" Thousands of men, grimy from their work, each of them possessed of some peculiar skill or great strength, thousands of them, "pals" of this one man whose active brain conceived ships of great magnitude and endurance! Mr. Arthurs had passed through the shipyard from apprenticeship to directorship: he had worked in this shop and in that, just as the men worked, and had learned more about shipbuilding than it seemed possible for any man to learn. "He knows how many rivets there are in the _Oceanic_," one of the foremen in the yard said to Marsh when they were being shown round. "He's the great boy for buildin' boats!" Marsh, until then, had never met a man like Mr. Arthurs. His life had been passed in Dublin, among people who thought and talked and speculated, but seldom did; and he had been habituated to scoffing talk at Belfast men ... "money-grubbers" ... mitigated, now and then, by a grudging tribute to their grit and great energy and resource. Mr. Arthurs had none of the money-grubbing spirit in him; his devotion to his work of shipbuilding was as pure as the devotion of a Samurai to the honour of Japan; and Marsh, who was instantly sensitive to the presence of a noble man, felt strongly drawn to him. "I wish we could get him on our side, Henry!" he said, as they sat in the station, waiting for the train to draw up to the platform. "I'd give all the lawyers we've got for that one man!" "Father thinks Tom Arthurs is the greatest shipbuilder that's ever lived," Henry answered. "He might be the greatest Irishman that's ever lived," Marsh rejoined, "if he'd only give a quarter of the devotion to Ireland that he gives to ships." "I suppose he thinks he's giving all his devotion to Ireland now ... and he is really. Isn't he, John? His firm is famous all over the world, and he's one of the men that have made it famous. It must be very fine for him to think that he's doing big things for his country!" Marsh nodded his head. "We're rather foolish about Belfast in Dublin," he said. "After all, real work is done here, isn't it? And the chief industry of Dublin ... what is it? Absolutely unproductive! Porter! Barrels and barrels of it, floating down the Liffey and nothing, _nothing real_, floating back! I like that man Arthurs. I wish to heaven we had him on our side!" "He's a Unionist," Henry replied.