“Oh, yes,” said Tom, “and officially the strike would be unofficial. But I’d be roundabout, unofficially. Rum sort of strike, eh? Striking against the Hepplestalls for the Hepplestalls, and a Bradshaw leading it. If you knew owt of Bradshaws and Hepplestalls, you’ll see the rumminess of that.” “Against us for us. Yes, I see. One might almost conclude you like the Hepplestalls, Mr. Bradshaw.” “Like ‘em!” said Tom. “Like ‘em!” His eyes glanced at William with the suspicion of a twinkle in it. William wondered if there was a twinkle; Sir Philip would not have wondered, he would have seen and he would have understood. He would have discounted Tom’s next words, “I take the liberty of telling you the Hepplestalls are a thieving gang of blood-sucking capitalists, but I prefer to stick to the blood-suckers I know. I know the Hepplestalls and I can talk to them. I don’t know, I won’t talk to a soulless mob of a London syndicate. You can think of it like this, Sir Rupert. There was steam, and it fastened like a vampire on Lancashire. It fastened on your sort as well as on my sort, and we’ve been working up to where we’re getting steam in its place, obeying us, not mastering us. We’re doing well against steam. Shorter hours are here, and factory work before breakfast has gone. Half-timers are going, and education’s going to get a sporting chance. And we’re not beating steam to let ourselves be ruined by water.” William nodded sober acquiescence, but Rupert was uninformed. “Water?” he asked. “Watered capital,” Tom explained. “Lancashire’s water-logged, but we’ll keep Staithley out of what’s coming to Lancashire. You have mills here that are the pride of the county. You wouldn’t turn them into the pride of speculators as the biggest grab they ever made in Lancashire! You wouldn’t make Staithley suffer from the rot of watered capital.” William stirred furtively on his chair and avoided Tom’s eye with the shiftiness of a wrongdoer who is shown the results of misdeed, and then remembered that he had done no wrong and nodded approval of Tom’s words which were not addressed to him but to Rupert. Mentally he thanked Tom for saying outright things which he had himself thought. He had merely kept them in reserve, unspoken until he had entertained himself by proceeding a little further with the accountants; but that was, perhaps, not the most honorable form of entertainment, based as it would have been on the false pretense that William was prepared to sell, and he was grateful to Tom for an intrusion which cleared the air. He did not blame himself: he had not played with fire, or, if he had, it had been while wearing asbestos gloves; but what Tom said to Rupert--of course it was to Rupert--was the final argument against a sale, and he drew out notepaper and bent to write.