There were near a dozen present, all men, and (as Joseph exulted to perceive) all working men.

Often already had he seen cause to bless that appetite for disconnected fact and rotatory argument which is so marked a character of the mechanic.

But even an audience of working men has to be courted, and there was no man more deeply versed in the necessary arts than Joseph Finsbury.

He placed his glasses on his nose, drew from his pocket a bundle of papers, and spread them before him on a table.

He crumpled them, he smoothed them out; now he skimmed them over, apparently well pleased with their contents; now, with tapping pencil and contracted brows, he seemed maturely to consider some particular statement.