old man's arm.

"I've been thinking," he said softly. "Perhaps I'm going at this thing backwards. Maybe I ought to try to win Jock over first. Do you know where he lives?"

"I ... I think so, sir. Only...."

"Lead the way, then."

In silence they skirted the factory and reached the mews which nestled under the cliffs like swallow's nests. The narrow alleys were unpaved and unlighted. Already the workers were asleep—or hiding perhaps? Jonathan wondered—in their warren of tumble-down shacks. In no time Tom became hopelessly lost in the maze. Once they asked directions of an old crone hunched on a mouldering doorstep ... and were answered with a gale of crazy laughter. All the while they felt hundreds of eyes watching their progress ... mocking at them.

"I'm sorry, sir," Tom shivered at last after several minutes of hammering on a door which he thought might be the right one had brought no response. "It's no use; we'll have to come back in daylight...."

"... when Jock will be at the factory. Perhaps I can talk to him there, though. Let's get out of this."

Jonathan rose from his tumbled bed before sunup and set himself to watch the factory through a pair of field glasses. Despite the fact that the gong had not sounded as usual, workers already were streaming toward the plant.

The first to reach the locked doors halted uncertainly but did not turn away. They merely stood there like a herd of cattle. The scene reminded Jonathan unpleasantly of pictures of mill lockouts he had seen in newspapers.

As he watched with bated breath, a surging movement began to grow in the crowd. Good Lord! They were pushing at the heavy doors. The iron-bound panels sagged. A splintering crash sounded across the valley. The doors were down! The silent mob started moving across the threshold. Again his effort to break the spell had failed.

"I told you, sir." Tom had entered the room unheard and was standing at his elbow like a venerable Satan. "Might as well make the best of it. Why don't you go back to England, marry a nice girl and bring her back here...." He dodged with amazing nimbleness as his master lashed out with a long arm. "I beg your pardon, sir. No offense meant; no offense at all."

"Very well. But stop calling me 'sir.' And get these damned canary cages 

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