“When it gives out we’ll go back to work,” returned the man. The others laughed. “Some of you won’t get back,” said Marsten. “That’s always the way after a strike. Better keep a good job while we have it.” “Oh, I could do with a bit of an ’oliday,” repeated the spokesman of the “pub” crowd, indifferently. “My God!” cried Marsten, indignantly, “if you take no more interest in your condition than that, how can you ever expect to better it?” “Well, I thort,” answered the other, good-naturedly, “when I sees you a-comin’ along, as ’ow you’d better it by arstin’ us to ’ave a drop o’ beer with you.” “You’re muddled with beer already,” said the young man shortly, as he turned and disappeared up the court. The crowd smoked on in silence for some minutes after he had left them. “Cocky young feller that,” said one at last, jerking his pipe over his shoulder in the direction Marsten had gone. “Oh, ’e knows a bit, ’e does,” remarked another, sarcastically. There was a longer pause, when the spokesman, who had been ruminating over the matter, said: “Wot d’ ye s’y t’ ’avin another pint insoide? Then we go t’ th’ meetin’ and wote for th’ stroike. Larn ’im a lesson. I like ’is impidence, I do. Tork ’bout muddlin’; we’ll show ’oose muddled.” This was unanimously agreed to as illuminating the situation. It is perhaps a pity that Marsten did not know the result of his brief conversation with his felow-workmen. He was young and had to learn many things. He did not know that the desire for improving one’s condition is not at all universal, and that even where there may be the germ of a desire, people do not wish to be dragooned into bettering themselves. Tact, as Mrs. Hope might have told him, goes farther than good intentions. A drop of beer and a friendly smite on the shoulder would have got him several votes against the strike. As it was, he had merely strengthened the arms of “that ass Gibbons,” by making the mistake of supposing that the average human being is actuated by reason. Meanwhile, the young man had passed under the archway and up the court, until he came to doorway No. 3. The hall, and the five pairs of grimy stairs, were only less public than the court, which in its turn was only less public than Light Street, because fewer feet trod thereon. He ascended the first flight of stairs and paused at one of the doors of the landing. From within came the droning notes of a harmonium, and Marsten forebore to knock as he listened to the sound. A slatternly woman came down the second flight with a water-jug in her hand. She stopped, on seeing a stranger standing there, and listened to the music also. The dirge being played did not soothe whatever savageness there was within the breast of the woman, for she broke out against the inmates of the rooms.