Wolffert and Marvel had both been trying to avert the strike, and had, I heard, made some impression among the people. Marvel had worked hard all day aiding Miss Leigh in her friendly efforts, and Wolffert had been arguing on rational grounds against a strike at the beginning of winter. I had been talking over matters with some of my mill-friends who had invited me to go with them; so I attended the meeting. I had been struck for some time with the change that had been going on in the workingmen's districts. As wretched as they had been before they were now infinitely more so. The meeting began, as the meetings of such bodies usually begin, with considerable discussion and appearance of deliberation. There was manifest much discontent and also much opposition to taking any steps that would lead to a final breach. A number of men boldly stood forth to declare for the half-a-loaf-better-than-no-bread theory, and against much hooting they stood their ground. The question of a resolution of thanks for Miss Leigh's baskets aroused a little opposition, but the majority were manifestly for it, and many pleasant things were said about her and her father as well, his liberal policy being strongly contrasted with the niggard policy of the other roads. Then there appeared the real leader of the occasion, to hear whom the meeting had been called: Wringman. And within ten minutes he had everything his own way. He was greeted with cheers as he entered, and he shouldered his way to the front with a grim look on his face that had often prepared the way for him. He was undoubtedly a man of power, physical and mental. Flinging off his heavy overcoat, he scarcely waited for the brief introduction, undertaken by the Chairman of the occasion, and, refusing to wait for the cheers to subside, he plunged at once into the midst of his subject. "Workingmen, why am I here? Because, like you, I am a working man." He stretched out his long arm and swept it in a half circle and they cheered his gesture and voice, and violent action, though had they considered, as they might well have done, he had not "hit a lick" with his hands in a number of years. Unless, indeed, a rumor which had begun to go the rounds was true, that he had once at least performed work for the government in an institution where the labor was not wholly voluntary.