They had a large audience,--men and women. "Robert Winston, Esq.," was the orator of the evening. He was a fluent speaker, and had a good deal of humor. He began about the early Anglo-Saxon guilds, and the banding together of craftsmen when towns grew large and prosperous, and labor was performed in the workshops, instead of at home; of the importance of the woollen-manufacture in the days of Elizabeth, not only in England, but on the Continent, when kings did not disdain to borrow money of these corporations; of their final overthrow, and the causes leading to it; of the growth of trades-unions, and the views of conflicting writers on the subject. The workman's necessities so often compelled him to accept what he felt to be inadequate returns, because he could not wait,--it was work or starvation with him,--so that in dull times he was not only at the mercy of the employer, but every other starving workman. On the other hand, so few workmen ever informed themselves concerning the employer's perplexities and dangers, they had no broad and vital interest in the business until they all became leagued together, as in co-operation. Then they shared one another's burdens and prosperity. It was not the one great fortune, but the many comfortable incomes. It was the fruit of the noblest thought and the truest philanthropy. As a producer it had done its best work in France; and he went briefly over the work of the masons at Paris, and the Association Remquet, which, after carrying on printing business for ten years, divided among its members an average of over ten thousand francs; the cloth-factory at Vienna, with its flour-mill, bakery, grocery, coal-yard, and farm; the different societies in England, that were promising, to say the least. All this had been done by the thrift and economy of individual members, who educated themselves by doing business, and so were enabled to dispense with the profits of middle-men, and the greedy clutch of speculators. After Winston had finished, Dr. Maverick went briefly over their plans for Hope Mills in a very simple and direct manner. "Winston was capital!" said Jack afterward. "When we are hard up we can send him off on a lecturing-tour. But wasn't it rather over the heads of our people?" "It was for others beside the workmen. You know, Darcy, some men are so used to swindling and misrepresentation, that they invariably accuse every plan of another, of the same motive. You will have a good deal of this back talk before your five years are ended; and I want Yerbury to know that this is an old, old scheme. I might have quoted the children of Israel, as aunt Jean did, and shocked the religious portion of the community. But, after all, isn't the greatest truth, the Golden Rule, co-operation in _all_ forms?" and he glanced up triumphantly. Jack did not gainsay him.