One night, waiting for the superintendent to work out these figures, he
sauntered through the works. A phrase from Edwin Markham's "The Hoe-Man
in the Making" kept ringing through his head. It ran as follows--"It is
in the glass-factory perhaps, that the child is pushed most hopelessly
under the blind hammer of greed," and the boy wondered whether this
especial works was one of those which the poet-author had visited. Owing
to the number of times Hamilton had been forced to go to this factory,
two or three of the men had come to know him by sight, and they nodded
now as he passed through. Noticing a boy that looked even younger than
himself,--for unconsciously his eye was seeking that of which he was
thinking,--he turned to one of the men who had nodded to him, and said
casually, and with an air of surprise:
"Why, that chap there doesn't look any older than me!"
"I don't suppose he is so very old," the man replied, "sixteen, maybe."
"Seems a shame to have to start in so young," Hamilton went on, with an
assumed air of carelessness, "and I suppose he's been here some years."
"Probably about four or five," was the reply.
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