Mr. Best laughed.

"You wait till they've got the power, and you'll find that the whip will
fall just as heavy from their hands as the masters of to-day. Better to
get small money and be free, than get more and go a slave in state
clothes, on state food, in a state house, with a state slave-driver to
see you earn your state keep and take your state holidays when the state
wills, and work as much or as little as the state pleases. What you
chaps call 'liberty' you'll find is something quite different, Baggs,
for it means good-bye to privacy in the home and independence outside
it."

"That's a false and wicked idea of progress, John Best, and well you
know it," answered Levi. "You're one of the sort content to work on a
chain and bring up your children likewise; but you can't stand between
the human race and freedom--no more can Daniel Ironsyde, or any other
man."

"Well, meantime, till the world's put right by your friends, you get on
with your hackling, my old bird, else you'll have the spreaders
grumbling," answered Mr. Best. Then he went into his home and Levi
trundled the wheelbarrow to a building with a tar-pitched, penthouse
roof, which stuck out from the side of the mill, like a fungus on a tree
stem.

Within, before a long, low window, stood the hand dresser's tools--two
upturned boards set with a mass of steel pins. The larger board had tall
teeth disposed openly; upon the smaller, the teeth were shorter and as
dense as a hair brush. In front of them opened a grating and above ran