Shortly they were taken through mountainous piles of more boxes, and more, through lanes in a dark ware-room, lanes between piled-up boxes, around corners of boxes, into a great place of mysterious machinery, with a large open space. Along the sides of this space and among the machines--which were stopped--stood girls, girls, girls, the factory-hands. Eric and his party, behind the manager, marched between the lines of girls and came to a manner of stage, although in truth it was only a part of the floor, with half a dozen chairs for the visitors. The girl and the “workers”--the men who were to explain and try to sell the bonds, after Eric’s speech--sat down in the chairs, and the manager said a few words to his employees, while Eric stood by, flushed, breathless as always with the excitement of his coming speech. Then the manager stepped back and Eric spoke, with his voice, his glance of a comrade. “I think before I begin that we might all like to sing a verse of a song which we love,” and he turned to the girl. She had been staring at these other girls, two hundred of them, and her heart was beating oddly. She understood what she was there to do--to stir up emotion in this young, pathetic company, so that her brother’s speech might have quicker and stronger appeal. For a moment she shrank--how could she help to wring money from these? She had heard the men in the office saying that most of them earned five and six dollars a week. To ask them to save a dollar a week! Then it flashed to her that it was for their good; it was not begging their money--it was giving them a chance to invest it safely. Swiftly she was on her feet, and the lovely, untired voice floated out among the silent engineers and the tired mill-hands. “My country, ’tis of thee-- Sweet land of liberty--” The two hundred girls, with their worn young faces, with their pitiful efforts at finery, cheap, light-colored shoes that meant heart’s blood, slimsy dresses, cut in a far-off imitation of millionaires’ daughters’ dresses--they listened to the girl’s voice, hypnotized. Discouraged faces brightened, defiant eyes softened; Eric Mannering was indeed doing a wise thing to send his sister’s voice as a messenger to prepare his way. Then, coming forward with the one or two halting steps which, unknowingly, did so much to open the way to the hearts of his audiences, he spoke. He caught his listeners at an emotional moment and held them there. He said much the same things always, but always with the instinctive fitting of the phrase to the people, which is the gift of a born speaker. And he ended when it was quite clear that the Liberty Loan was no charity but a great chance for good business, with an appeal to patriotism.