Thus the game went on, and it convinced the men that their secretary knew a thing or two, being more than a match for the manager. Gibbons carried himself confidently, and talked with grand assurance that he was perhaps far from feeling, for he became more and more haggard and anxious as the fight continued. He alone knew the seriousness of the increased drain on the resources of the Union, through the forced support of the new hands he had lured away from Sartwell’s employ, and which had upset all his previous calculations. An attempt had been made to lighten the burden by trying to induce the new men to return to their homes, and this had been partially successful with the first lot, but the others obstinately insisted on getting their share of the strike pay, and refused even to consider the advisability of returning. They demanded what was promised them, or threatened to enter the works in a body, which action would have speedily put and end to the contest. Gibbons was well supported by that section of the press which gave more than a few lines each day to the progress of the strike. One morning the chief of these papers came out with an appeal to the public for aid. The case of the strikers, battling, it might be, at first for their own rights, but fighting in reality for all working humanity, was most convincingly and tersely put in a double-leaded editorial, and the journal itself headed the list with a handsome contribution. Would the people of England hold aloof, reduce these workers into slaves, using the weapon of grim starvation against them? The journal did not believe such apathy existed, and its belief was amply justified, for subscriptions poured rapidly in, together with indignant letters from all parts of the country, which were duly printed in its columns. The first pinch of the strike came on the men when it was suddenly announced that strike pay would, the next Saturday, be cut down to one-quarter the amount they were then receiving. There was a good deal of grumbling and some inquiries as to what they were fighting for, but, on the whole, the disastrous proclamation was received quietly, if somewhat grimly. “We are bound to win,” said Gibbons, when he was reluctantly compelled to tell the men of the reduction. “The firm is losing nearly a thousand pounds a week by the factory remaining idle, and it is not likely they will stand that long, even to oblige Sartwell.” Gibbons had not the courage to add that even with this reduction the Union could not hold out more than a week longer; that it was practically at the end of its resources, and that future strike pay would have to depend on the subscriptions received from the outside, a most precarious source of revenue, for every one knows how short-lived enthusiasm is, and how the collection of hard cash destroys it.