"The foreman don't do much in the way of hard work himself; he has enough to do to look after his gang of labourers, for they'd shirk their work if they could—if they wasn't looked after. Treat a man like a dog and you'll only get dog's work out of him. The chap that knows he's just hired for a couple of hours, and will be put off the job then, ain't going to take the interest in his work that he ought. Mind, I ain't saying he ought not, for I know well enough that if a man puts heart into his work, it's a deal better than just brute strength only; and that's why so many of us grumble at the way things are managed at the docks. I tell you it's bad for foremen and labourers too, though the foremen don't mind so much, as they make money by it. See how Rutter has got on since he's been foreman," added Chaplin with some bitterness. "But how is it they can manage it? I don't understand," interrupted Winny in an eager tone. "Well, my girl, it's this way. The foreman is paid by contract. The ship comes in, and they find out how much cargo there is in the hold to be got out, and the labour-master can tell to an hour or so how long it will take sixty or twenty men to get it out, and he says this job will be so much, five or ten pounds as the case may be, and the foreman has to pay the labourers out of this contract price. Well, if he can make forty or fifty men do the work of fifty or sixty by keeping them at a breakneck pace all the time, and working men only for about an hour, or two hours while they are fresh, he makes so much more for himself, for, of course, the contract price is calculated as though he had to pay the sixty men, instead of the twenty he has made do the work. Now do you understand, my little woman?" added her father. The words were not much in themselves, but the tone in which they were spoken made his wife look at him in a little surprise and alarm; for he was usually a silent man, at least about his work. "You never told me this before," she said. "How is it you are so hot about it now?" "It was hard work to keep from being hot before, but, don't you see, I might have said something about it and spoiled my chance of a job; but now everybody is talking the thing over, for we've had some chaps down at the dock gates, and they've found out that over and above what I've told you, the merchants and shippers pay eightpence an hour for our work, but we only get fivepence, and we've borne this sort of thing long enough." His wife looked still more alarmed, for there was a ring of determination in her husband's tone, and she knew by past experience that the knitted brow and fierce look with which he banged the table indicated something unusual, and she was half afraid of what he might do next. But after looking at his wife for a minute, he turned to his paper again. "They say here that it is a shame for poor tailors and nailmakers to be sweated. So if it is a shame for them, isn't it a shame for us?" he demanded.