He asked Hal several curious questions, and the answers must have pleased him, for he invited Hal to sit down. Hal moved up, always keeping behind the pile of planks so that only his head showed, and sat down on a trestle in the dark corner at the back of Mr. Springett's desk. He took no notice of Dan, but talked at once to Mr. Springett about bricks, and cement, and lead and glass, and after a while Dan went on with his work. He knew Mr. Springett was pleased, because he tugged his white sandy beard, and smoked his pipe in short puffs. The two men seemed to agree about everything, but when grown-ups agree they interrupt each other almost as much as if they were quarrelling. Hal said something about workmen. 'Why, that's what _I_ always say,' Mr. Springett cried. 'A man who can only do one thing, he's but next-above-fool to the man that can't do nothing. That's where the Unions make their mistake.' 'My thought to the very dot.' Dan heard Hal slap his tight-hosed leg. 'I've suffered in my time from these same Guilds--Unions d'you call 'em? All their precious talk of the mysteries of their trades--why, what does it come to?' 'Nothin'! You've just about hit it,' said Mr. Springett, and rammed his hot tobacco with his thumb. 'Take the art of wood-carving,' Hal went on. He reached across the planks, grabbed a wooden mallet, and moved his other hand as though he wanted something. Mr. Springett without a word passed him one of Dan's broad chisels. 'Ah! Wood-carving, for example. If you can cut wood and have a fair draft of what ye mean to do, a Heaven's name take chisel and mall and let drive at it, say I! You'll soon find all the mystery, forsooth, of wood-carving under your proper hand!' Whack, came the mallet on the chisel, and a sliver of wood curled up in front of it. Mr. Springett watched like an old raven. 'All art is one, man--one!' said Hal between whacks; 'and to wait on another man to finish out----' 'To finish out your work ain't no sense,' Mr. Springett cut in. 'That's what I'm always saying to the boy here.' He nodded towards Dan. 'That's what I said when I put the new wheel into Brewster's Mill in Eighteen hundred Seventy-two. I reckoned I was millwright enough for the job 'thout bringin' a man from Lunnon. An' besides, dividin' work eats up profits, no bounds.' Hal laughed his beautiful deep laugh, and Mr. Springett joined in till Dan laughed too. 'You handle your tools, I can see,' said Mr. Springett. 'I reckon, if you're any way like me, you've found yourself hindered by those--Guilds, did you call 'em?--Unions, we say.' 'You may say so!' Hal pointed to a white scar on his cheek-bone. 'This is a remembrance from the master watching Foreman of Masons on Magdalen Tower, because, please you, I dared to carve stone without their leave. They said a stone had slipped from the cornice by accident.'