Hugo stepped up to a large pile of cloth, seemingly interested in some mystic marks and figures upon it, which he requested Wilson to explain; while Sebastian, going on, stopped at Myles’s side, and, looking at his work said, ‘That is cut-looking is it?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, I’ve learnt something. Listen to me a moment, will you?’ Myles looked up inquiringly. ‘I am going to say something to all these people directly, and I want you to promise to come and listen to it; will you?’ Half vexed, half flattered, Myles looked into Mallory’s face. He had not given up his notion that the young man was a ‘jackanapes:’ but if so, the ‘jackanapes’ had a manner that it was not easy for even a superior person to resist. Myles replied, ‘Certainly I will come.’ He looked as if he were going to add something--in fact it was on the tip of his tongue to say, ‘I don’t promise to like what I shall hear;’ but he refrained. He remembered Adrienne and his promise. Yet he had the conviction that he would dislike what Sebastian had to say. A Conservative--Southern sympathies, no doubt. What could such an one have to say that he would like? But he would go, if only to watch till the cloven foot showed itself. At that moment Wilson came up again. ‘You’ve seen the last of the rooms, sir. If you’re ready, I’ll have the bell rung, and then we can go out into the yard.’ In a few minutes the great bell had clanged out, the engines had been stopped, the hands were streaming out into the yard. Sebastian and Wilson stood upon a huge empty lorrie that was close by one of the warehouse doors, so that they had nothing to do but step on to it, which they did, while Myles and his comrades swung themselves on to the ground, and took their stand in a knot, not far away from this impromptu platform. Sebastian looked keenly at all the upturned faces, while Wilson made a few brief yet remarkably entangled and involved introductory remarks. The overlooker’s voice ceased. He swung himself from the lorrie, and went and stood with the crowd.