“Guaranteed! What does a master’s guarantee amount to? We’re going to win this strike, and then where will you new-comers be? You know what happens when the men go back. Not one of you will be left in the shops. Suppose you do get good wages for a few weeks, what will be the benefit in the end? A permanent situation at even lower wages would be better.” “Who says it wouldn’t? But I haven’t the permanent situation, you see.” “Now you are talking sense. Are you a member of the Union?” “I was. I had a row with the foreman, and he gave me the sack.” “In whose shop was that?” “At Smighden’s.” “I don’t know it. What wages were you getting there?” “Thirty shillings a week.” “Do you know Markham, Sarbury & Company, of Bolton?” “Yes.” “Would you be satisfied with thirty shillings a week there?” “Yes; if I could be sure of getting it.” “You can be sure of it. I will telegraph to the foreman this minute, and we’ll have an answer before we finish eating. He has promised to find me places for three men, and I haven’t sent him one yet. But don’t say a word to any one here, for I want to keep the other two places for Bolton men if they come.” “I’ll not go back to this shop at all if I can be sure of a place in Bolton.” And so it came about that Sartwell lost his hundredth cog, and the cog never thought it worth his while to give his late master even a word of explanation. He left on the first train for Manchester. This kind of thing happened several times before Sartwell fully realized the method in Marsten’s action. He thought at first that Marsten had been merely lucky in buying off a man at the very time when such a purchase would block all progress. It was like pulling the linchpin from one of the axles of a wagon. The manager wrote to his fellow-managers in different parts of the country, and warned them that their foremen were giving places to employees from the works of Monkton & Hope, and he received answers saying they would do all they could to prevent such transplanting; but, as it was difficult to trace where a man went, when so few of them were deported, the warning came to nothing. If a wholesale exodus had been attempted, Sartwell, with the aid of his fellow-managers, might have done something to prevent its success; but the very homoeopathic nature of Marsten’s remedy made it difficult to cope with. By this time the feeling that he was a beaten man came over Sartwell, and, although he said nothing and sought sympathy from no one, it aged him more than years of toil had done. His daughter, now home from school, saw with helpless grief the deep lines care was ploughing in his rugged face.