Legally I worked ten and a half hours, though actually the hours were very much longer. The machinery I could not clean while in motion, and which the spinner would not stop for me during work-hours, I had to leave until noon or early morning. Then, too, the spinner I worked for paid me to take over some of his work that could be done during the stopping hours, so that there was a premium on those valuable hours, and I got very little time out of doors or at rest. There were generally from three to four days in the week when I worked thirteen and thirteen hours and a half a day, in order to catch up with the amount of work that I had to do to retain my position. In all, at this time I had five men over me who had the right to boss me. They were: two spinners, the overseer, second hand, and third hand. One of the spinners was a kindly man, very considerate of my strength and time, while the other was the most drunken and violent-tempered man in the room. He held his position only by virtue of having married the overseer’s sister. He was a stunted, bow-legged man, always in need of a shave. He wagged a profane tongue on the slightest provocation, and tied to me the most abusive epithets indecency ever conjured with. He always came to work on Monday mornings with a severe headache, a sullen mood, and filled himself with Jamaica ginger, which, on account of its percentage of alcohol, served him the same palatable, stimulating, and satisfying functions of whisky without making him unfit to walk up and down his alley between his dangerous mules. By having to be in the mill when the machinery was stopped, I was forced to listen to the spinners as they held their lewd, immoral, and degenerate conversation. It was rarely that a decent subject was touched upon; there seemed to be few men there willing to exclude profligacy from the rote. This was because “Fatty” Dunding, a rounded knot of fat, with a little twisted brain and a black mouth, was the autocrat of the circle, and, withal, a man who delighted to talk openly of his amours and his dirty deeds. As there were no women or girls in the room, significant words and suggestive allusions were shouted back and forth over the mules, whisperings, not too low for a skulking, fascinated boy, hidden behind a wastebox, to drink in, were in order during the noon-hour. The brothel, the raid of a brothel, the selling of votes, and references to women, formed the burden of these conferences. Occasionally some spinner would “Hush” out loud, there would be a warning hand held up, but only occasionally.