MRS BELL LISTENS
The room was a large one. It had been used as a cabinet- maker's workshop before the influx of an alien population, and the inevitable rise in rent values had driven the artisan further east to Poplar and Canning Town, and had made such a business address an expensive luxury to the struggling tradesman who had rented it.
At little benches men sat working silently, carefully. In a corner of the room, separated by a screen of match-boarding, a little machine went "click-click-click" monotonously, insistently.
Most of the workmen were foreigners, and they were engaged in perfectly legitimate business, the engraving of plates for fine art reproductions, a delicate process, requiring a steady eye and a sure hand. Such records as we now possess tell us that the plates and the
