"Listen, men," he requested. "I'll put the facts before you plainly, for I place my whole confidence in your loyalty. You think, perhaps, that you're being strung in this deal. Well, we'll all be strung, and hung over the side of the boat, too, unless we work together. You men are dissatisfied, because, although you are working full time, you are asked to take a ten per cent. cut. The truth of the matter is that the factory is not making a cent of profit. I have to make the boxes for sale at a loss now, on account of the competition of the trust factory, which is trying to put me out of business. I must work at cost, or even at a loss, for a time. With the ten per cent. cut, I can keep going. Without it, I must close down. As soon as this crisis is over, if I win out, the old wage-scale will be restored. I hope that time will not be long away. I may venture to tell you something in confidence: I'm planning to take on some side lines--some things in which I hope to make big money. As soon as they're started, I'll give you back the present scale." "Why don't your wife help pay the wages?" Schmidt questioned, shrewdly. "She has plenty of money for foolishness." "Faith, and that isn't a bad idea at all, at all, Mr. Hamilton," McMahon agreed. "It's a better use for her money. Since she's been coming around to the house these last few weeks, it's cost me a week's pay to get a hat for my old woman in imitation of hers.... Women have no place in business, I'm thinking." Ferguson added his testimony to the like effect: "That's right," he declared. He looked about for a place in which to spit by way of emphasis, but, seeing none, forbore. "My girl, Sadie, she put two dollars in false hair this very week. Your wife is sure making it mighty hard for us, Mr. Hamilton. How can I buy false hair with a ten per cent. cut? Durned if I can see!" Again, Hamilton was afflicted with embarrassment over the infelicitous results of his wife's benevolent activity, and again he changed the subject. "Well, boys," he said frankly, "I've put the matter to you straight. I'm sorry. But, unless you take the cut, I don't see any future for any of us.... It's up to you." "The men decide for themselves," Ferguson replied, glumly. "We only report back to them." "But you three really decide," Hamilton persisted. "Come, give me your decision now." Ferguson and McMahon regarded each other doubtfully, in silence, as if uncertain how to proceed. But Schmidt was not given to hesitation in expressing himself on any occasion. He spoke now with an air of phlegmatic determination, brandishing his right arm at the start: "Well, speaking for myself only, I want to say--How do you do, Mrs. Hamilton." CHAPTER VIII As Schmidt concluded his oratorical flourish in this astonishing fashion, the other occupants of the room turned amazedly, to behold Cicily herself, standing in the open doorway of the study.