Maraton from the first had felt a seal laid upon his lips. Now, when
the time had come for him to speak, he did so with hesitation, almost
with reluctance.

"As yet," he began, "there is very little for me to talk about. You
are, I understand, you five, a committee appointed by the Labour Party
to confer with me as to the best means of promulgating our beliefs. You
have each told me your views. You would each, apparently, like me to
devote myself to your particular district for the purpose of propagating
a strike which shall result in a trifling increase of wages."

"And a coal strike, I say," Peter Dale interrupted, "is the logical
first course. We've been threatening it for two years and it's time we
brought it off. I can answer for the miners of the north country. We
have two hundred and seventy thousand pounds laid by and the Unions are
spoiling for a fight. Another eighteen-pence would make life a
different thing for some of our pitmen. And the masters can afford it,
too. Sixteen and a half per cent is the average dividend on the largest
collieries around us."

A small man, with gimlet-like black eyes and a heavy moustache, at which
he had been tugging nervously during Peter Dale's remarks, plunged into
the discussion. His name was Abraham Weavel and he came from Sheffield.

"Coal's all very well," he declared, "but I speak for the ironfounders.
There's orders enough in Leeds and Sheffield to keep the furnaces ablaze
for two years, and the masters minting money at it. Our wages ain't to
be compared with the miners. We've twenty thousand in Sheffield that
aren't drawing twenty-five shillings a week and they're about fed up
with it. We've our Unions, too, and money to spare, and I tell you