There were men of all ages amongst them, from about eighteen years old to white-headed men past sixty.

Most of them looked healthy and a little embrowned by recent exposure to the weather; and here and there was a pinched face which told its own tale.

I got into talk with a quiet, hardy-looking man, dressed in soil-stained corduroy.

He was a kind of overlooker.

He told me that there were from eighty to ninety factory hands employed in that quarry.