to do about going; for he was not at all sure that some quarrel would not ensue, and he did not want to quarrel. However, as his conscience was clear of any intentional offence, he went.

"And what do you suppose his old master wanted with him? Why, nothing more nor less than to offer him his business. He was going to give it up, he said; and if his old apprentice liked to take it on certain terms, he might have it.

"The young fellow thanked him for the offer, as in duty bound.

66 6

Well,' said the other, in a close, reserved sort of way, I don't know that you have much to thank me for. I don't care a pin about you, and if I could have hindered you from getting on, I know I should have done it; and you know it, too, I suppose. But it seems as if you are to get on; and as I am going out of business, it won't hurt me. So if one can make a bargain, well and good; it will save me some trouble; if we don't come to terms, I shall look out for some one else, that's all.'

"Ungracious as this address was, the young man did not reject the overtures of his old employer. Perhaps he thought he saw the leadings of God's providence in the affair, and did not feel at liberty to say 'No' at once and without consideration. At any rate, he did take time to consider; and as the terms, though sufficiently hard, were not unfair, he decided at last on buying the lease of the old workshops.

"This was more than twenty years ago," continued Mr. Johnson; "and though he has had some downs in his history since then as well as ups, and a great many hard struggles, such as his men know nothing about, he has gradually made way, and is looked upon, sometimes with a little envy perhaps, as a rich and prosperous man.

"I have given you this history," Mr. Johnson added, "to prove, as far as it goes, that there is nothing in the position of a workman, nor in his surrounding circumstances,

to prevent him from taking the first steps, at least, to what may be considered a higher rank. But I have also wished to show you that this rank cannot be ordinarily taken without the aid of perseverance and rigid economy, nor without the endurance of trials and anxieties to which others are strangers.

"Something else I wished to say; but I see, Latham. there is something pretty near your tongue's end, and I have had almost all the talk to myself for the last halfhour."

"It is not much, perhaps," replied Frank; "but you have not told us the name of that young man, and if you have no objection"

"His name was Johnson," said Mr. Johnson.

แ Meaning my own self. I had no motive in concealing my share in the story except for the convenience of telling it. If I had ever wished to impose on any of you as having been born and bred above working with my own hands, there are people enough about to give the lie to any such pretensions. But as I have never seen the sense of that | kind of pride, I have, I believe, never cultivated it. And so, speaking in my own name, and without any concealment, I may speak a few words more that are on my mind.

"I know that it is often said," continued Mr. Johnson, "that employers who have once been workmen themselves are, as a rule, the hardest masters when the power to be hard and tyrannical falls into their hands. I was told this thirty years ago; and I have since then seen that there is a certain degree of truth in this saying. Now, as I have never supposed myself to be above the common weakness of human nature, I fear that, sometimes, I may insensibly have fallen into this blunder. I know that I have striven against it, and prayed to be kept from it; but-"

“Please not to say any more on that head, sir,” intered Frank Latham; "for, as far as that goes, I must say

that nobody has a right to complain of you, Mr. Johnson." I felt that this was true; and I said so, feeling glad that Frank had the manliness to make the avowal.

"Thank you heartily for this testimony," said our employer; "and all I will say further is, that I will endeavour more and more to deserve it.

And now there is something

else that I can say more confidently. However poorly I may have shown it, I have always felt sympathy with my workmen, and, so far from wishing to keep them down, I have always rejoiced when any one of them has advanced himself by his own exertions."

This was true-I knew it was true; and I wondered when Mr. Johnson said this how I and my companions in the strike had forgotten more than one instance in which he had laid himself out to advance the interests of some of our fellow-workmen who had shown a wish and determination to rise higher in the world. Perhaps we had not forgotten this, however; perhaps we had grumbled about it at the time, and called it favouritism. I was going to acknowledge this when Frank Latham spoke out againlike a man, too.

"I do believe it, sir," said he; "and so we do all, I think. And, as far as that goes, we never had a right to complain; and as to anything else, I don't know that we ever had much to complain of. More than that, sir, I believe, and am pretty sure, it never would have entered into our heads to turn out at all if it had not been for bad advisers and prompters. I can't say less than that; and I don't think you would want any of us to say more at this present time."

"I could never have expected you to say so much, Frank," said Mr. Johnson, a good deal moved, as he shook hands first with Frank, and then with us all.

And so, after another half-hour or so passed in talking quietly over matters connected with our future work, but not of so much consequence to be told as what I have already written, the party broke up, and we all went to our homes.

CHAPTER XXIII.-AFTER THE STRIKE.

To judge from my own particular case, the news that the strike was over, and that we were all on good terms again with our employer, carried joy and gladness into every workman's dwelling. More than enough had been felt of the miseries inflicted by a strike to bring even the most obdurate to question the wisdom of such a movement. And as we were none of us very obdurate, after all the way back was not so very difficult.

There was a good deal of lost time to make up, however, both for master and men; worse than this, there were bad habits to be struggled against, and, in some instances, the struggle was a very hard one. Men who had had nothing to do for ten whole weeks, and had got into the way of passing their time at public-houses, were not likely to lose, all at once, the liking for lounging and dissipation they had contracted. And I may say here, without dwelling on a particularly painful case, that one of our fellow-workmen was just good-for-nothing after the strike. Poor fellow ! he made a feeble resistance; but the habits of idleness and drinking had laid hold on him, and he was carried away by

them.

It took some little time for us all to settle down quietly to work again, and that is the truth. I know very well that, glad as I was at the strike being over, my ten weeks' enforced idleness had done me no good; and the new hands who had been taken on in our absence were not, in every instance, so agreeable as we might have wished. But these were small matters compared with what we had undergone; and in the course of two or three weeks things began to settle down again in the old fashion.

Meanwhile we could not help discovering how much our employer had sacrificed while patiently waiting for our return. And to show how wild and unreasonable our demands had been, I may state that we heard, from many quarters, of the numerous applications for work he had

refused in order that his old workmen might not be irretrievably ruined. We were more than ever convinced of our past folly when, one by one, our old companions who had left the town in search of work elsewhere returned in woeful plight to confess their disappointment, and to beg on again at the old shop, as they said.

And I may say this for Mr. Johnson, that he never reproached us by word, look, or sign with the inconvenience. he had suffered, and never exulted over us in the defeat we had experienced. On one occasion, however, he reminded me, in a good-natured way, that he had not quite forgotten the nature of those demands of ours to which he had refused to listen. It was two or three years after the strike, and Betsy and I were beginning to be anxious about putting our eldest boy into a way of getting his own living. As nothing offered or promised better for him, I thought of my own trade; and one day I took an opportunity of asking Mr. Johnson whether he would take him as an apprentice.

"Why, Brown," said he, pleasantly, "I should have no objection-indeed, I should be pleased to do it. But do think you can reconcile it with your own principles ?" "My principles, sir?" said I, really not understanding at that moment what Mr. Johnson could mean.

you

"Ah, I see you do not take my meaning," he said, "and it does not matter. Let your boy come on trial, and we will see what can be made of him."

"Thank you kindly, sir," said I; but I could not help saying, “I cannot see how it can be against my principles to give my boy a good trade, with your help, sir."

"No? You did think once, however, that it was an injury to workmen for masters to take apprentices."

Mr. Johnson smiled as he said this, and not much more was said on either side; but I saw at once, then, that if employers were to consent to being tied down to the laws and rules made for them by their workmen the inconvenience would not be all on one side; and I wondered-just because