"Looks as if it was clearing up," he remarked. "What are you going to do?" asked Nellie Stone again, with a coquettish flirt of her blond fluff of hair. "Grin and bear it, I s'pose," replied the young laster, with an adoring look at her. "My land! grin and bear a cut of ten per cent.? Well, I don't think you've got much spunk, I must say. Why don't you strike?" "Who's going to feed us?" replied the laster, in a tender voice. "Feed you? Oh, you don't want much to eat. Join the union. It's ridiculous so few of the men in Lloyd's belong to it, anyway; and then the union will feed you, won't it?" "The union did not do what it promised in the Scarboro strike," interposed Dennison, curtly. "Oh, we all know where you are, Frank Dennison," said the girl, with a soft roll of her blue eyes. "Besides, it's easy to talk when you aren't hit. Your wages aren't cut. But here is George May here, he's in a different box." "He's got nobody dependent on him, anyway," said Flynn. "If I wasn't going to get married I'd strike," cried the young man, with a fervent glance at the girl. She colored, half pleased, half angry, and the other men chuckled. She took another bite of pie to conceal her confusion. She preferred Flynn to the laster, and while she was not averse to proving to the former the triumph of her charms over another man, did not like too much concessions. "You'd better go and eat your dinner, George May," she said, in her sweet, shrill voice. "First thing you know the whistle will blow. Here's yours, Ed." With that she pulled out a leather bag from under the desk, where she had volunteered to place it for warmth and safety against the coil of steam-pipes. "I don't believe your coffee is very cold, Ed," said she. The laster glared from one to the other jealously. Dennison went towards a shelf where he had stored away his luncheon, when he stopped suddenly and listened, as did the others. There came a great uproar of applause from the next room beyond. Then it subsided, and a girl's clear, loud voice was heard. "What is going on?" cried Nellie Stone. She jumped up and ran to the door, still eating her pie, and the men followed her. At the end of one of the work-rooms, backed against a snowy window, clung about with shreds of the driving storm, stood Ellen Brewster, with some other girls around her, and a few men on the outskirts, and a steady, curious movement of all the other workmen towards her, as of iron filings towards a magnet, and she was talking. Her voice was quite audible all over the great room. It was low-pitched, but had a wonderful carrying quality, and there was something marvellous in its absolute confidence. "If you men will do nothing, and say nothing, it is time for a girl to say and act," she proclaimed. "I did not dream for a minute that you would yield to this cut in wages. Why should you have your wages cut?" "The times are pretty hard," said a doubtful voice among her auditors.