“Well!” said Gertrude. “A cottage on the Edge!” “We have to grow, Rupert and I,” said Mary. “We aren’t big enough for the Hall yet.” “I feel about a quarter of an inch high, uncle, when I think of those mills... those thousands of men.” “Oh, the workpeople,” said Gertrude, putting them in their place. “Your uncle tells me some of them dared to hiss.” “Yes, I want to talk to you about that, uncle.” William shuffled in his chair. “Not very nice of them, was it?” “Impertinents,” said Gertrude. “They ought to be locked up.” Rupert stared at her. If this was the attitude of the Hall, he thought, no wonder there had been a show of resentment. But it was only Gertrude’s attitude. “Would you also lock up,” said William, “the very many who did a deadlier thing than hissing? The men who stayed away, the men who went home ignoring Rupert altogether? We’d have to close the mills for lack of labor.” “Lord,” said Rupert, “that’s telling me something.” “I thought it best that you should know.” Rupert thought so too, even if it was a piece of knowledge which seemed to bring him off a high place with a bump. “Oh, my dears,” Gertrude put in, “you’ve no idea how difficult it all is.” “No,” said Mary, “but Rupert knows that he knows nothing and he’s here to learn.” “Yes. I’m here to learn. Can you put your finger on this for me, uncle? Why did they hiss? Why did they stay away?” “What do you expect from a pig but a grunt?” asked. Gertrude. “It’s to be noted, Rupert,” said William, “that the hisses came before you spoke, not afterwards.” “You mean I said the right thing?” “Did you mean what you said? Look at those books over there.” Behind the glass of the old mahogany case to which he pointed, the titles looked queerly incongruous. There were books on such subjects as Welfare Societies, Works Committees, Co-Partnership, and Rupert thought them incongruous not only in connection with that bookcase but with William. “People have sent them to you?” he guessed. “No. I bought them. If in the short years that I’ve been Head I have left my mark on Hepplestall’s, it is in this direction. Your father, as perhaps you know, was against what he called coddling the men. I would not coddle, but I have encouraged Welfare Societies and I have instituted Works Committees.” Rupert had the sensation of deflation. He had called William of “the old gang,” and here was William’s contribution to the march of Hepplestall’s. Rupert was to add humanity, was he? Well, William had added it first. “I did these things with hope,” William was saying. “I pinned my faith to them, and what are they worth? There were two Hepplestalls hissed in Staithley Mills today. That is the reply to what I have tried to do. Can you wonder that I feel I’ve shot my bolt and missed my aim? The detail of my Works Committees scheme took me a year to evolve. I thought it was accepted and welcomed; and I was hissed to-day in Staithley Mills.”