Jim looked dubious. ‘Excuse me, sir, but do you know what proper work of this sort is, and what are the conditions of work in general at this date? You don’t mean to be oonreasonable, but a man’s intentions and his deeds don’t always square.’ ‘Granted. But do you mean there are trades-unions and strikes among the Friarton bakers, and that we may be reduced any day—not as a matter of eccentric taste, or in obedience to a doctor’s prescription, but as a case of necessity—to eat unleavened bread like the Jews in the Passover week, or to bake at home, a lost art where housewives and maid-servants are concerned?’ ‘It ain’t a laughing matter,’ Jim rebuked the young man’s levity; ‘and if the things themselves ain’t here—and I have not heard tell yet of trades-unions and strikes among the bakers in Friarton—do you think their spirit ain’t about in the air? Do you think the bakers alone of working men,’ continued Jim, with an accent of injured _esprit de corps_, ‘will be content to remain without a voice, ay, and a precious influential voice, in all that concerns them nearly—their hours of work, their mode of work, and mode of pay, and all the rest of it? Are the bakers to be left behind when every other specie of working man is having his say? I should not have consented to that myself, when I was a young baker; now, I am nigh an old man,’ Jim cooled down at the recollection, ‘and I’m free to admit that I don’t see much good comes of speechifying and vapouring,’ ended Jim, drinking off his ale and drawing a long sigh after the refreshment. ‘Well hit at me, old “specie,”’ thought Oliver, while he said, quietly, ‘Nobody is preventing any man from having his say in what particularly concerns him. It is one of the privileges that living in the present generation has given him. I should be the last person to object to it. I intended the men to take what I said to them into consideration; only I can’t, for the life of me, see what just and rational argument they have to bring against it; I touched on no debatable point. If they are worth their salt in morals as in ability, they are surely willing to give a fair exchange of work for wages. And if the men have a grain of common sense, they must grant that no organised system of work can be maintained without one person in authority to enforce discipline on those under him.’ ‘The capital and labour question ain’t so easily settled as you suppose, Master Oliver,’ said Jim, shaking his head doggedly if somewhat evasively. ‘At the best it is a very ticklish matter, and I only hope you won’t burn your fingers meddling with it.’ ‘I can guess you are of opinion that I am not setting about the task in the proper fashion; but wait till you see how I get on, Jim,’ said Oliver, good-humouredly; ‘don’t damp my spirits by forecasting evil.’