He watched the masters as they left the hotel (laughing, some of them were,
at passing jokes), and when all had gone, he re-entered. He went to the waiter,
who recognised him.
    »There's a bit on a picture up yonder, as one o' the gentlemen threw away;
I've a little lad at home as dearly loves a picture; by your leave I'll go up
for it.«
    The waiter, good-natured and sympathetic, accompanied him upstairs; saw the
paper picked up and untwisted, and then being convinced, by a hasty glance at
its contents, that it was only what the man had called it, a bit of a picture,
he allowed him to bear away his prize.
    Towards seven o'clock that evening, many operatives began to assemble in a
room in the Weavers' Arms public-house, a room appropriated for festive
occasions, as the landlord, in his circular, on opening the premises, had
described it. But, alas! it was on no festive occasion that they met there this
night. Starved, irritated, despairing men, they were assembling to hear the
answer that morning given by the masters to their delegates; after which, as was
stated in the notice, a gentleman from London would have the honour of
addressing the meeting on the present state of affairs between the employers and
the employed, or (as he chose to term them) the idle and the industrious
classes. The room was not large, but its bareness of furniture made it appear
so. Unshaded gas flared down upon the lean and unwashed artisans as they
entered, their eyes blinking at the excess of light.
    They took their seats on benches, and awaited the deputation. The latter,
gloomily and ferociously, delivered the masters' ultimatum, adding thereto not
one word of their own; and it sank all the deeper into the sore hearts of the
listeners for their forbearance.
    Then the gentleman from London (who had been previously informed of the
masters' decision) entered. You would have been puzzled to define his exact
position, or what was the state of his mind as regarded education. He looked so
self-conscious, so far from earnest, among the group of eager, fierce, absorbed
men, among whom he now stood. He might have been a disgraced medical student of
the Bob Sawyer class, or an unsuccessful actor, or a flashy shopman. The
impression he would have given you would have been unfavourable, and yet there
was much about him that could only be characterised