“I can’t understand why you talk like that, Mr. Sartwell. I have seen heroic things done even in my short life. I saw a man come out of these works alone and unprotected, when he knew the mob outside was howling for his blood, yet there was no trace of either fear or bravado about him. The same man nearly lost his life in saving others when the factory burned, and Braunt, an unlearned workingman, did unselfishly and chivalrously go to his death in the same cause.” “Ah, Braunt was one of a thousand! Well, perhaps there is something worth preserving left in human nature after all, and may be I am merely growing old and pessimistic. Anyway, the main point at present is that there must be a trial of strength; so I suppose there is nothing for us to do but shake hands like a pair of prize-fighters before the performance begins. I think you are foolish, you know, not to take the sub-managership.” The two men shook hands, and Marsten departed into the night. Sartwell sat in his office for some minutes thinking over the situation. CHAPTER XXXV. The second strike was as clean-cut as the first: that is to say, no laggards remained behind in the works; there was apparent unanimity among the men, and apparent determination on the part of the masters. To all outward seeming it was to be a straightforward, brutal trial of strength between Capital and the Union. Marsten cared little for public sympathy, which Gibbons had considered of great importance; and Sartwell cared for it nothing at all. The public took small interest either way. It was known that the company had voluntarily advanced the wages of the men a short time before, and employers generally said that this showed the folly of sentimentality in business; that no master should advance wages until he was forced to do so. There was no gratitude on the part of the workingman, they averred, and some of the newspapers took the same tone. But even those journals favourable to labour had qualms about the wisdom of the strike under the circumstances, although they hoped it would succeed. Marsten, however, paid small heed to the comments of friend or foe; he knew that success or failure did not lie in what the papers said, but in perfect organization and in hitting hard. He knew that, if he won, most of the praise would go to the determination of the men and the opportuneness of the strike; while, if he lost, he would have to shoulder all the censure that had to be bestowed. He picketed the works in the usual way, choosing for that duty the staunchest of his friends among the men. He asked the remainder of the employees to keep away from the gates and leave the conduct of the fight entirely to him and those he had chosen as his lieutenants.