“Hold on, sir! let me say my say first.  There are seven hundred men working in this place:  the most of ’em have worked here a long while.  Good work, good pay.  There ain’t a man of ’em but likes Mr. Surrey, and would be sorry to lose the place; so, if they won’t bear it, there ain’t any that will.  Wait a bit!  I ain’t through yet.”

“Go on,”—­quietly enough spoken, but the mouth shook under its silky fringe, and a fiery spot burned on either cheek.

“All right.  Well, sir, I know all about Franklin.  He’s a bright one, smart enough to stock a lot of us with brains and have some to spare; he don’t interfere with us, and does his work well, too, I reckon,—­though that’s neither here nor there, nor none of our business if the boss is satisfied; and he looks like a gentleman, and acts like one, there’s no denying that! and as for his skin,—­well!” a smile breaking over his good-looking face, “his skin’s quite as white as mine now, anyway,” smearing his red-flannel arm over his grimy phiz; “but then, sir, it won’t rub off.  He’s a nigger, and there’s no getting round it.

“All right, sir! give you your chance directly.  Don’t speak yet,—­ain’t through, if you please.  Well, sir, it’s agen nature,—­you may talk agen it, and work agen it, and fight agen it till all’s blue, and what good’ll it do?  You can’t get an Irishman, and, what’s more, a free-born American citizen, to put himself on a level with a nigger,—­not by no manner of means.  No, sir; you can turn out the whole lot, and get another after it, and another after that, and so on to the end of the chapter, and you can’t find men among ’em all that’ll stay and have him strutting through ’em, up to his stool and his books, grand as a peacock.”

“Would they work with him?”

“At the same engines, and the like, do you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Nary time, so ’tain’t likely they’ll work under him.  Now, sir, you see I know what I’m saying, and I’m saying it to you, Mr. Surrey, and not to your father, because he won’t take a word from me nor nobody else,—­and here’s just the case.  Now I ain’t bullying, you understand, and I say it because somebody else’d say it, if I didn’t, uglier and rougher.  Abe Franklin’ll have to go out of this shop in precious short order, or every man here’ll bolt next Saturday night.  There! now I’ve done, sir, and you can fire away.”

But as he showed no signs of “firing away,” and stood still, pondering, Jim broke out again:—­

“Beg pardon, sir.  If I’ve said anything you don’t like, sorry for it.  It’s because Mr. Surrey is so good an employer, and, if you’ll let me say so, because I like you so well,” glancing over him admiringly,—­“for, you see, a good engineer takes to a clean-built machine wherever he sees it,—­it’s just because of this I thought it was better to tell you, and get you to tell the boss, and to save any row; for I’d hate mortally to have it in this shop where I’ve worked, man and boy, so many years.  Will you please to speak to him, sir? and I hope you understand.”