"Certainly not," was the prompt reply. "We come here to get equal rights. We don't want to cook. I'm a born actor, myself. I expected to play in Shakespeare when I joined the Brotherhood. Anybody that wants this job can have it. If we do your hot, dirty, disgusting, disagreeable work while the others play in the shade we are going to get something for it." "Even so," the young leader responded, "is it fair that an assistant cook should receive equal wages with the chef?" "And why not? Labour creates all value. The chef's a fakir. We do all the work. He never lifts his hand to a pot or pan. He struts and loafs through the kitchen and lords it over the men. Let him try to run the kitchen without us, and see how much you get to eat! We stand on the equal rights of man!" "But my dear comrade----" "Don't use them words," old Tom pleaded, "jest let me make a few remarks----" Barbara pinched Tom's arm and he subsided. "Can't you see," Norman went on, "that we are paying the chef for his directive ability, for his inventive genius in creating new dishes and making old ones more delicious? You but execute his orders." "We stand square on our principles. Labour creates all values. The chef never works. We make every dish that goes to the table. If it has any value we make it. We demand our rights!" The court agreed on fifty dollars a month, and the men refused to consider it. "We prefer to work in the fields, the foundry, the machine-shop, the mills, the forests, anywhere you like except the kitchen. Let the chef do your work. Good day!" They turned and marched out in a body and sat down in the sunshine. In vain Norman argued and pleaded. They stood their ground with sullen determination. A final clincher which the young leader could not evade always ended the argument. The spokesman came back to it with dogged persistence: "What did you mean, then, when you've been drumming into our ears that labour creates all value? We do all the work, don't we?" The upshot of it was the eighteen assistant cooks marched back into the hall, stood before the judges, and all were granted equal wages with the chef. Whereupon the chef sprang to his feet and faced the court with blazing eyes. "You grant these chumps--these idiots--wages equal to mine? Not one of them has brains enough to cook an egg if I didn't tell him how. Their wages equal to mine. I resign!" Tom spoke vigorously: "Now will ye leave him to me?" Norman and Barbara looked at each other in angry and helpless amazement. The old miner leaped to his feet, made his way down from the platform, and with two swift strides reached the chef. He leaned close and whispered something in the rebel's ear. There was a moment's hesitation and the chef turned, signalled to his assistants, and amid cheers marched to the kitchen. Tom resumed his seat beside Barbara with a smile, quietly saying: "That's the way to do business, ladies and gentlemen!" "What did you say to him?" Barbara asked.