Martin grew more and more violent. "Isn't it enough," he yelled, "for us
to work ourselves to death for these creatures? Are they going to watch
every bit we eat, and every drop we drink? Just look at their houses!
look how they live up there! Who has got all that for them? We, I tell
you, grandfather; we who have been toiling here fishing, and going to
sea year after year, son after father, in storm and tempest, watching
night after night in wind and snow, so as to bring back wealth for these
wretches! Just look what we get for it all! What a pig-stye we live in!
And even that does not belong to us. Nothing does! It all belongs to
them--clothes, food, and drink, body and soul, house and home, every
bit!"

Begmand sat rocking himself to and fro, and drawing hard at his pipe.
Woodlouse saw that there was a pause, and so began again.

"Property is robbery--"

But Martin would not let him continue. "There is no one in the whole
world," he shouted, "who puts up with what we do! Why don't we go up and
say, 'Share with us, we who have done all the work'? There has been
enough of this blood-sucking! But no; we are not a bit better than a lot
of old women; not one of us! They would never put up with that sort of
thing in America."

"Ha! ha! good again!" laughed Tom Robson. "I dare say you think people
are willing to share like brothers in America? No, my boy; you would
soon find out you were wrong."

"Do you mean to tell me that workmen in America live like we do?" asked