She looked up from the pamphlets, her brows creased. Pelham smothered an impulse to kiss away the slight gravure of worry. "The West, bad as it is in some things, at least has modern laws and safeguards." An unmeant accusation drove in her tones. "The creaky old laws here are not even followed! When was the last inspection of your mines?" "More than a month ago. The inspector wasn't very thorough, I noticed. They were pronounced safe." "It ought to be done weekly, at least, beside a daily inspection by your forces. Gas can collect in the coal mines, flaws and cracks in the roofing anywhere--only close inspection will do.... And, then, think of the wages paid here! Can a man live--decently, I mean, so that he can send his children to school, and all, on what you pay? And Judge Florence gets seventy-five thousand salary--outside of his dividends." "My father gets fifty." "It's compulsory starvation and death for the ones who really produce the wealth.... We'll see what the convention does." Pelham missed the opening sessions; but Jane gave him reports of the meetings she witnessed, supplemented by what Hernandez and Jensen told him. It was a heated gathering. Big John Pooley was accused outright of dishonest accounting, by one violent structural iron worker. The oily eloquence of Robert E. Lee Bivens smoothed this over. Each of the administration officials--"the boodle gang," as the noisy radical minority called them--was flayed; the editor of the _Voice of Labor_ received an especial lashing from Jensen, who charged him with deliberately selling out labor's paper to the corporations. The machinery rolled smoothly. All protests were tombed in safely packed committees. At last came the final night, with Paul's speech, and consideration of the mining bill afterward, as the only unfinished business. Pooley, using his gavel vigorously, secured general quiet. He spoke of the honor paid by having as their distinguished visitor the wide-awake vice-president of the Birrell-Florence-Mountain Mining Company. "Every act in his life marks Paul Judson as a friend of labor. Many of you do not know that he holds a union card--the printers elected him to honorary membership more than a year ago. He is one of us. His problems are our problems. He is turning the splendid force of his intellect to a solution of the labor question which will help employer and employee alike. A gentleman of sterling integrity, a leader among leaders----" The fulsome eulogy continued for a quarter of an hour. Jane, who sat beside Pelham, sniffed audibly at most of the speech. He had asked his mother to go with them; but she had been too busy planning a dance at the country club, which Paul was giving for Sue, to take the evening off. He would have Jane to look after, his mother reminded him.