“I should have written days ago, but unfortunately I cannot dictate an affectionate letter through my shorthand clerk, and the older I grow the more I dislike writing with my own hand. Worried? Oh, dear no! Why should one worry? I’m afraid your belligerent old father still loves a fight, whether with circumstances or with men. Before the fire was out, telegraphic orders were despatched to three machinery firms in the North. While the fire-engines were still flinging water on the ruins, I had secured a lease of the four houses that adjoin the works, had compounded with the tenants, and sent them packing. That night men were at work knocking doorways through the partitions and strengthening the floors. Happily the engines and boilers were not injured, being in a separate building, and already such machinery as we could get is in place, and a long, sagging, wobbling iron rope carries the power across the yard. The new secretary of the Union proposed a conference with me to discuss what the firm was willing to do for the men thrown out of work by the fire. I refused to discuss anything with the new secretary, he not being an employee of mine. He is a shrewder man than Gibbons; so he at once got up a deputation of my own men and sent them to me. I received them, of course, and they asked me if I would give them fifteen per cent of their wages while out of work. ‘No,’ said I, ‘I can always do better than the Union. There will be paid one hundred per cent of the wages, not fifteen; I expect you all back at the works on Monday.’ I fancy I made the men open their eyes a bit. Work will be going on as usual within a week, and we won’t be behind with a single order. The new factory which is now begun will be built in accordance with modern ideas, and I expect to be able to increase our business so that the four houses leased will be retained when the new building is ready for occupation. Forgive this patting of myself on the shoulder, but a man must brag now and then to some one, and you, my dear Edna, are the only one to whom I can boast.