THE SHADOW A great factory with the machinery all working and revolving with absolute and rhythmic regularity and with the men all driven by one impulse and moving in unison as though a constituent part of the mighty machine, is one of the most inspiring examples of directed force that the world shows. I have rarely seen the face of a mechanic in the act of creation which was not fine, never one which was not earnest and impressive. Such were the men, some hundreds of them, whom I used to gaze at and admire and envy through the open windows of several great factories and mills along the street through which lay my way to my office. I chose this street for the pleasure of seeing them of a morning, as with bared and brawny arms and chests and shining brows, eager and earnest and bold, they bent over glowing fires and flaming furnaces and rolled massive red-hot irons hither and yon, tossing them about, guiding them in their rush and swing and whirl, as though they were very sons of Vulcan, and ever with a catch of song or a jest, though a swerve of the fraction of an inch might mean death itself. I had come to know some of them well, that is, as well as a man in a good coat can know men in a workman's blouse, and numbers of them I began to know in a sort, as day after day I fell in beside them on their way to or from their work; for, lawyer and gentleman as I was, they, I think, felt in me the universal touch of brotherhood. We used to talk together, and I found them human to the core and most intelligent. Wolffert was an idol among them. They looked to him as to a champion. "He has learned," said one of them to me once, "the secret of getting at us. He takes us man for man and don't herd us like cattle. He speaks to me on a level, man to man, and don't patronize me." He was a strong-visaged, clear-eyed Teuton with a foreign accent. "We haf our own home," he said with pride, "and the building company is 'most off my back. If we can but keep at vork we'll soon be safe, and the young ones are all at school. The sun shines bright after the storm," he added with a shake of his strong head. "Ah, well, we are having good times now. The sun is shining for many of us. Let us pray that it may keep shining." "God grant it," he said, solemnly. I was thinking of Miss Eleanor Leigh and the way she had smiled the last time Heaven had favored me with a sight of her. That was sunshine enough for me. She had heard of the attack on me and had been so sympathetic that I had almost courted her again on the spot. John Marvel had made me out quite a hero. The good times, however, of which my mill-friends and I talked were rapidly passing. In Coll McSheen's offices plans were being laid which were to blot out the sun for many a poor family.