the spot to-night. I've got an attack of nerves. The treat's mine."
"Thanks! I heard the boys outside rubbed it into you a little."
"Rubbed nothing in. They can't faze me by shouting for the preacher. And as for Joe Poulsky, damn him! I'll get him yet."
When the whiskey came he drank it at a gulp. Then he asked how the men were getting on at the Malleson plant. Bricky (his name was Thomas Hoover, but few knew him otherwise than as Bricky) replied that things were going on as usual. The wage scale was satisfactory; sanitary conditions good, hours of labor agreeable, bosses human; probably the best plant in the city in which to work.
"When does the agreement expire?"
"First o' January," was the reply.
"Going to renew it?"
"So far's I know. Why?"
Lamar did not answer the question, but he asked another one.
"Do you know how much the company's going to clean up in net profits this year?"
"No; I ain't heard."
"Well, I have. It'll run close to two hundred thousand. Malleson and his family get the lion's share of it."
"I s'pose so. They're the biggest stockholders."
"Do you think you fellows that work there are getting what you're entitled to out of the earnings of that concern?"
"We're gittin' what the scale calls for."
"Never mind the scale. Do you think you're getting a fair share of the money your work brings in?"
"I don't know. I ain't figured it out."
"Well, I have. I know you're entitled to about fifty per cent. more than you're getting."
"That's some of your socialist arithmetic, Steve."
