"Shut down the works for a little while and ask the men to get together in the big machine shop, I want to speak to them." Burns had been astonished so often this week that, although he opened his mouth to say something, he was able to repress his wonder. After staring blankly at his employer for a minute, he turned and went out to execute the order. The great engine was stopped. The men from the casting rooms and the carpenters' shops, and the store-rooms, and the repairing departments, came trooping into the big machine shop, and sat or leaned on the great, grim pieces of machinery. As the shop filled, the place began to take on a strange aspect never seen there before. Mr. Hardy crossed the yard from the office, followed by the clerks and minor officers of the road, all curious to hear what was coming. Mr. Hardy mounted one of the planers and looked about him. The air was still full of gas, smoke, and that mixture of fine iron filings and oil, which is characteristic of such places. The men were quiet and respectful. Many of them had heard the manager's speech of Thursday night at the town hall. Most of them were aware that some change had taken place in him. It had been whispered about that he had arranged matters for the men injured in the Sunday accident so that they would not suffer for anything. The grimy, hard-muscled, hard-featured crowd of eight hundred men all turned their eyes upon the figure standing erect and pale-faced on the great planer, and he in turn looked out through the blue murky atmosphere at them with an intensity of expression which none in that audience understood. As Mr. Hardy went on with his speech they began to understand what that look meant. "My brothers," began the manager, with a slight tremble in the words so new to him, "as this may be the last time I shall ever speak to you, I want to say what I feel I owe to you. For twenty-five years I have carried on the work in this place without any thought of the eight hundred men in these shops, except as their names were on the pay roll of the company. It never made any difference to me when your wives and children grew sick and died; I never knew what sort of houses you lived in, except that in comparison with mine they must have been very crowded and uncomfortable. For all these twenty-five years I have been as indifferent to you as a man possibly could be to men who work for him. It has not occurred to me during this time that I could be anything else. I have been too selfish to see my relation to you and act upon it. "Now I do not call you in here to-day to apologise for twenty-five years of selfishness--not that alone; but I do want you to know that I have been touched by the hand of God in such a way that before it is too late I want to call you all 'brothers.' I ask that when you think of me hereafter it may be as I am now, to-day, not as I have been in all the past years.