The evening papers devoted a good deal of space to the strike at the Bennington shops. They frankly upheld Bennington. They admitted that employers had some individual rights. They berated the men for quarreling over a matter so trivial as the employment of a single non-union man, who was, to say the most, merely an experimenter. However, they treated lightly Bennington's threat to demolish the shops. No man in his right mind would commit so childish an act. It would be revenge of a reactive order, fool matching fools, whereas Bennington ought to be more magnanimous. The labor unions called special meetings, and with one or two exceptions voted to stand by the action of the men.
There was positively no politics behind this strike; everybody understood that; at least, everybody thought he understood. But there were some who smiled mysteriously and wagged their heads. One thing was certain; Bennington's friend, Warrington would lose many hundred votes in November. For everybody knew which way the Republican convention would go; there was nobody in sight but Warrington.
Bennington and Mrs. Jack dined at the old home that evening. There was plenty of gloom and forced gaiety around the board. John pretended that he was well out of a bad job; he was not a dreamer nor a socialist, not he; Utopia was not for the iron age. He told stories, joked and laughed, and smoked frequently. No one but the mother had the courage to ask if he really meant to tear down the mills. She came around the table, smoothed his hair as she had done since he was a boy, and leaned over his chair.
"John?"
"Well, mother mine?"
"Shall you really do it?"
"Do what?"
"Tear it down."
He did not answer at once, and she waited, trembling.
"You would not have me take back my words to the men, would you, mother?" quietly.
"Your father loved the place."
"And do I not?" a note of strong passion in his voice. "I shall tear it down, if I live. Do not ask me anything more about it. Has Dick been over to-day?"
"He telephoned that he would be over after dinner. He wants you to go to the speech-making to-night." Patty rose from her seat at the table.
"Patty," said John, rather surprised at his discovery, "you are almost a woman!"
"You men never see anything quickly," said Mrs. Jack. "Patty has been a beautiful woman for several months."
Patty started, restrained the impulse to speak, and searched Mrs. Jack's face. But Mrs. Jack had eyes for no one but John. Her thought was far removed from her words. That telephone message rang in her ears every hour of the day. One moment she was on the verge of telling John, the next she dared not. What had that wretch found out? What could he have found out? A lie; it could be nothing more nor less than a lie; but the suspense and the waiting were killing her. Every beat of her heart, every drop of her blood belonged to this man at her side, and she would rather die than that doubt should mingle with his love. She was miserable, miserable; she dared not confide in any one; Patty was too young, for all her womanhood, to understand fully. Night after night she forced her recollection through the dim past, but she could find nothing but harmless, innocent follies. Alas, the kaleidoscope of life has so many variant angles that no two eyes see alike. What to her appeared perfectly innocent might appear evil in the neighbors' eyes; what to her was sunshine, to another might be shadow.
"Think of it!" said John. "Patty will be marrying before long."
Mrs. Bennington looked at Patty and sighed. To rear up children and to lose them, that was the mother's lot. To accept these aches with resignation, to pass the days in reconciling what might be with what shall be, that was the mother's portion. Yes, Patty must some day marry.
"When Patty marries, mother," said John, "you shall come and live with Kate and me."
"You are moving me around like a piece of useless furniture," replied Patty, with some resentment. "I doubt if I shall ever marry."
"Bosh!" laughed John. "There'll come some bold Lochinvar for you, one of these days; and then off you'll go. There's the bell. That must be Dick."
Patty and Mrs. Jack crossed glances quickly. John went to the door himself and brought Warrington back with him.
"Won't you have a cup of tea, Mr. Warrington?" asked the mother.
"Thank you, I will." Warrington stirred the tea, gazing pleasantly from face to face.
The lines in his face seemed deeper than usual; the under lids of the eyes were dark, and the squareness of the jaw was more prominent. John saw no change, but the three women did. Warrington looked careworn.
"Well, John, I see that you have done it."
"Yes."
"I'm terribly sorry, but you couldn't back down now and live in town."
"You see, mother?" John smiled sadly.
"Yes, my son. You will do what you think best and manliest."
"How's the cat?" asked Warrington.
"It still wanders about, inconsolable," answered Patty. How careworn he looked!
"Poor beast! It is lucky to have fallen in such good hands."
"When you are mayor," said Patty, "you must give me a permit to rescue stray cats from the pound."
"I'll do more than that; I'll build a house of shelter for them."
"What time does your speaker begin?" inquired John, lighting a fresh cigar.
"John, you are smoking too much," remonstrated Mrs. Jack.
"I know it, honey."
"Rudolph begins at nine; if we go then that will be soon enough. You'll be amused. Have you been riding lately?" Warrington directed this question to Patty.
"Yes, regularly every morning." Patty dallied with the crumbs at the side of her plate.
"I don't know what's the matter with me, but I find it wearies me to climb on to a horse's back. I haven't got back to normal conditions yet."
"I was wondering where you were."
"And how is Jove?" asked Mrs. Jack.
"He's snoozing out on the veranda. I take him everywhere now."
Presently they moved into the living-room. Warrington longed to sit beside Patty, but of a sudden he had grown diffident. It amused him to come into the knowledge that all his address and worldliness would not stand him in good stead in the presence of Patty. Words were no longer at his command; he was no longer at his ease. He was afraid of Patty; and he was very, very lonely. That empty house over the way was no longer home. There were moments when he regretted his plunge into politics. He was not free to pack his luggage and speed away to lands that urged his fancy. He had given his word, and he was too much of a man to withdraw it. He must remain here and fight two battles.
Mrs. Jack had taken the seat next to him, and was asking him about the progress of the play. It was going on so indifferently that he was of half a mind to destroy it, which he did later. His glance always came back to Patty. She was bent over her basket-work. She was calling him Mr. Warrington again. Had he offended her in any manner? The light from the lamp sparkled in her hair. She was as fresh and beautiful as a July rose. But Mrs. Jack was an artist. She knew how to draw him out; and shortly he was talking animatedly. It was now that Patty's eyes began to rove.
John, his fingers meeting in an arch, one leg thrown restlessly across the other, thoughtfully eyed his wife and his friend. ... It was a lie; there was nothing in all the world so honest as Warrington's hand, so truthful as his wife's eyes. Cursed be the doubt that had wedged between these two he loved!
Time passes quickly or slowly, according to the state of mind. To John the time was long; to Patty and Warrington it was too short; to Mrs. Jack it was neither long nor short, but suspended.
"Time for us to go, John. You are not particular about a chair, are you?" Warrington asked.
"Not I. I prefer to stand up in the rear of the hall. If I am bored I can easily escape."
"Oh, the night will not be without some amusement."
"Take good care of John," whispered Mrs. Jack in Warrington's ear; as the two men were about to depart.
"Trust me!" Warrington smiled.
Patty and John observed this brief intercourse. The eyes of love are sharp. Patty was not jealous, neither was John; but something had entered into their lives that gave to all trivial things a ponderous outline.
"Don't let any reporters talk to John, Mr. Warrington," requested the mother.
"I'll surround him."
"Shall we walk?" asked John.
"We can see better on foot."
"We'll walk, then."
So the two men went down town on foot, and Jove galloped back and forth joyously. At any and all times he was happy with his master. The one bane of his existence was gone, the cat. He was monarch of the house; he could sleep on sofa-pillows and roll on the rugs, and nobody stole his bones.
"Good dog," observed John.
"Money couldn't buy him. I saw that fellow Bolles to-day," tentatively.
"Bolles?" John did not recollect the name.
"The fellow you nearly throttled the other night," explained Warrington. "He looked pretty well battered up. I never saw you lose your temper so quickly before."
"He struck me without provocation, at the wrong moment. Who is going to speak to-night?"
"Donnelly and Rudolph."
"What do you think? Donnelly called me up by 'phone this afternoon. Wants to know if I really intend to tear down the shops. I told him I had nothing to say on the subject."
"Tear them down. I should. You're a rich man."
"Money isn't the question. The thing is, what shall I do? I'm not fitted for anything else."
"Tear down the shops and then build them up again, after a few years. It will be a good lesson to these union leaders. And you could have the fun of fighting to build up the trade your father left. You were talking once of rebuilding entirely."
"Not a bad idea, Dick. Only, I feel sorry for the men."
"Why? Are they free men or are they not? It rested with them just as much as it did with you. I am far removed from the principles of unionism, as they stand to-day. I have no patience or sympathy with men who can not, or will not, appreciate a liberal, honest employer."
"Let's change the subject, Dick."
For a block or so they proceeded in silence.
"John, you're the head of the family. I love Patty better than anything else on God's earth. Do you mind?" Warrington uttered these words swiftly, before his courage, which he had suddenly urged to its highest, dropped back.
John swung round abruptly and brought his hands down heavily on Warrington's shoulders.
"Is that true, Dick?"
"As I stand here. Oh, I know; I'm not good enough for Patty. I haven't lived as decently as I might. I haven't gone through life as circumspectly as you have. I drank; success made me dizzy. But I love Patty—God bless her!—as I never hoped or dreamed of loving any woman. You're a man, John; you will understand. I've been alone all my life; buffeted here and there, living haphazard, without any particular restraint on my desires. The dear old aunt was the only tie, and that was delicate till I came home and found how good and kind she was. I miss her; months from now I shall miss her a hundredfold. I'm very lonely. You've all been so good to me. To be alone, and to think of living alone for the rest of my days, is a torture. My nature craves companionship, and this craving has led me into plenty of mischief. I love Patty. What do you say, John?"
"Say? Why, you are good enough for any woman alive. I am very glad, Dick. Patty married to you! You old farmer," affectionately, "I've always been mentally pairing off you two! Come on; let's hear what the political windmill has to say. They're burning red fire in front of the hall."
But a moment gone their feet had dragged with each step; now there was a lightness that was dancing. John knew that it was all a lie; and his heart was as light as his feet. Kate, dear Kate! He was a wretch! He slapped Warrington on the shoulder.
"To think of your marrying Patty, the little sister!"
"Don't go too fast, John," said Warrington with less enthusiasm. "I haven't said a word to Patty yet; and if she's a sensible young woman, she'll give me my conge first-off."
"By George, women are strange creatures. It's the truth, Dick; you can't tell which way they'll go. But Patty's no fool." John hadn't felt so good in many hours.
"But I love her, and God knows I shall try to be worthy of her, even if I lose her. ... Sky-rockets!" with an upward glance. "That's the signal for Rudolph's arrival at the hall."
"Come on, then!"
Rudolph was the great Jeffersonian Democrat, not by excellence, rather by newspaper courtesy, and that, to be specific, by his own newspaper. He had come up from New York that day to deliver his already famous speech. He was one of the many possibilities in the political arena for the governorship. And as he was a multimillionaire, he was sure of a great crowd. As an Englishman loves a lord, so does the American love a millionaire. Rudolph's newspaper was the only one in the metropolis that patted him on the back regularly each morning. He was the laboring man's friend; he was the arch enemy of the monopolies (not yet called trusts); and so forth and so on. For all that some laughed at him, he was an able politician, and was perfectly honest in all his political transactions, which is something of a paradox. So he came up to Herculaneum to convert the doubting. The laboring party greeted him en masse, and stormed the hall for choice seats.
The hall was a low, rambling structure, bad for the voice, but capable of seating a few thousands. The curbs glared with green and red fire, and a band blared out the songs of freedom. The crowds surged back and forth, grumbling and laughing and shouting. And the near-by saloons did a land-office business. It was a great night for the man who had nothing to do. All at once there was loud hurrahing. An open hack drove up to the entrance, and the great Jeffersonian stood up, bowing, bowing. The green light on one side and the red on the other gave to his face a Gargantuan aspect rather than that of a Quixote, to whom he was more often likened than to any other character in fiction. The police cleared a pathway for the great man, and he hurried up the steps. Another cheer, and another blast from the band. Great is popularity, whose handmaiden is oblivion.
"They'll be doing all this to you some day," John declared, as he and Warrington elbowed through the crowd, the dog between their legs.
"That's him!" cried a voice.
"Who?"
"The fellow that writes; Henderson's man."
"Salt licks for him!" came in derision.
"He'll give Donnelly a run for the money."
"Not in a thousand years!"
All this amused Warrington.
"How d' y' do, Mr. Warrington?"
A hand touched the prospective candidate on the arm. Warrington saw Osborne's rubicund nose.
"So you're out, too, Mr. Osborne?"
"I never let meetings go by, Richard. Good evening, Mr. Bennington. A man with ten millions doesn't look any different from ordinary mortals, does he? But he is different, or he wouldn't have that barrel. A million is like a light-house; it attracts all sorts of birds."
Warrington laughed and went on. Once or twice he lost the dog, but Jove managed to turn up each time.
"We'll stand at the left," said John; "it's nearer the exits."
"Just as you say. I wish I'd left the dog at home. He's a nuisance in a crowd like this."
They presently stood with their backs to the wall and looked toward the stage. Donnelly was already speaking about the great man who was that night to address them.
"And," concluded the mayor, "Mr. Rudolph will lead us to a victory such as the party in this state has not yet known." And half a hundred more final words. Man approaches nearest woman's postscript when he says: "And, gentlemen, just one word more!"
Meantime Warrington's gaze wandered here and there. He saw many familiar faces,—politicians, prominent merchants of both parties, and the usual exuberant hundreds drawn thither only by curiosity. These were willing to applaud anything and anybody, without knowing or caring what about. Quiet one moment, roaring the next; murmur, murmur, like angry waters on shingle. These make and unmake public men; they have nothing, but they can give everything. Strong tobacco smoke rolled ceilingward, and those on the stage became blurred and nebulous. Once Warrington caught a glimpse of a battered face, but it disappeared quickly. However, he said nothing to Bennington. Again, he saw McQuade moving about, within fifty feet. From time to time McQuade stooped, and Warrington knew that the white dog was present.
"Gentlemen," concluded Donnelly, with a flourish, "William Henry Rudolph, of New York, our next governor."
And, to quote the sympathetic reporters, "tremendous applause shook the rafters." Mr. Rudolph rose majestically, and smiled and bowed. Heigh-ho! man accepts applause so easily; the noise, not the heart behind it; the uproar, not the thought. Man usually fools himself when he opens his ears to these sounds, often more empty than brass. But so porous is man's vanity that it readily absorbs any kind of noise arranged for its benefit.
He began calmly. The orator always reserves his telling apostrophes till that time when it is necessary to smite palm with fist. He spoke of Jefferson, the simplicity of his life, the firmness of his purpose, the height of his ideals. He forgot, as political speakers generally forget who emulate their historic political forebears, that progress rearranges principles and constitutions, that what passed as good statesmanship in Jefferson's time is out of order in the present. Mr. Rudolph paused in the middle of a metaphor. There was a sudden commotion in the rear of the hall. Men were surging to and fro.
"Stand back!" cried a firm, resonant voice, full of anger.
The uproar increased. Those in the forward chairs craned their necks. Some stood up to learn what the matter might be. Others mounted their seats. A thousand absurd conjectures passed from mouth to mouth.
"Somebody's dropped dead!"
"Sit down in front! Sit down!"
"What's the matter?"
"Where are the police?"
"Put him out!"
"A fight!"
Blue helmets moved toward the scene of action slowly. Mr. Rudolph still paused and moistened his lips impatiently. Men can give and take away popularity in the same breath, but a dog fight is arranged by occult forces, and must, like opportunity, be taken when it comes. We are educated to accept oratory, but we need no education in the matter of a dog fight. This red corpuscle was transmitted to us from the Stone Age, and the primordial pleasures alone resist enlightenment.
Two bulldogs, one tan, the other white, were fighting desperately, near the exits. In between human legs, under chairs, this way and that, snarling, snapping, dragging. Men called out, kicked, tried to use canes and umbrellas, and some burned matches. The dogs were impervious. Now the white dog was atop, now the tan. So many interfered that there was no interference.
It was Warrington who had cried out. He had been listening to the orator; and Jove, smelling his enemy from afar, slyly crept out of his master's reach. The white dog had also been on the watch. In the drop of an eyelid the battle was on. Warrington instantly comprehended the situation, when he saw McQuade, who had every confidence in his dog, clear a circle. He pushed his way through the swaying wall of men and commanded those in front to stand back. He was furious. He had no objections to human beings fighting, but he detested these bloody conflicts between dumb brutes. He called to Jove, but Jove was past hearing; he had tasted his enemy's blood. Once Warrington succeeded in parting the dogs, but the crush prevented his making the separation complete. Instantly they were at it again. The police made superhuman efforts to arrive before it was all over. The fight, however, came to an end as suddenly as it had begun. Jove found his grip. But for the broad collar on McQuade's dog the animal would have been throttled then and there.
McQuade lost his temper and his discretion. He kicked Jove cruelly in the side, at the very moment when Warrington had succeeded in breaking the grip. Bennington thrust McQuade back violently, and he would have fallen but for the dense pack bolstering him up.
"I'll remember that kick, Mr. McQuade," said Warrington, white in the face.
"I don't think you'll be mayor of Herculaneum, Mr. Warrington," replied McQuade, glaring venomously at the man who had brushed him aside so easily.
"Perhaps not, Mr. McQuade," said Warrington; "but at any rate there'll be a reckoning for that kick. You've been trying for months to bring these dogs together. You have finally succeeded, and your dog has been licked soundly. You ought to be satisfied."
Warrington took Jove under his arm and pressed toward the door, followed by Bennington, who was also in a fine rage. The dog, bloody and excited, still struggled, though the brutal kick had winded him.
McQuade was no fool. He saw that if Warrington left this way the impression would not be favorable to the boss contractor. So he made haste to approach Warrington.
"Hold on there, Warrington. I apologize for kicking your dog. I admit I was excited; and my dog was getting licked. I am sorry."
"All right, Mr. McQuade," said Warrington, who would have preferred leaving, minus any apology. He understood perfectly well McQuade's reason for bending.
"By George!" whispered Bennington, "I'd give a thousand for one good punch at that ruffian's head. Brute, double-dealing brute! Look out for him after this, Dick."
"I can take care of myself. Officer, will you kindly get a carriage for me?"
"Sure, Mr. Warrington," said the policeman.
The two managed to get out. In fact, everybody was moving toward the exits. They had forgotten Mr. Rudolph, who completed his effort before a two-thirds empty hall. They say that he went back to his hotel that night disgusted with humanity and, mayhap, with the fact that the fight had not occurred nearer the stage. Orators are human also.
As Warrington followed Bennington into the carriage the door closed and a head was thrust inside the open window.
"Don't forget me when you're mayor, Mr. Warrington," said Bill Osborne.
"Well?" Warrington was in no mood for banalities.
Bill glanced hastily from side to side, then said, in a stage whisper that sent Bennington into a roar of laughter:
"I sick'd 'em!"
The Republican caucus or convention was uneventful. Warrington was nominated for mayor of Herculaneum, with little or no opposition. Everybody expected it. It was, in the phraseology of the day, cut and dried. There was no surprise on the part of the public. Still, Senator Henderson was jubilant; he had nominated his man.
The young candidate's speech, accepting the nomination, was reproduced in full in all the newspapers, whose editorial writers frankly admitted that the speech was one of the best heard in Herculaneum in years. Reporters raked up anecdotes and old photographs; they enlarged upon the history of his early struggles and his ultimate success; and long despatches flashed over the wires. The whole continent was more or less interested in the sudden political ambition of one of its favorite dramatic writers.
It was true that Warrington's vanity was touched. It always touches our vanity to be given something for which we have made no struggle whatever. It was something to be followed by curious newsboys, to be spoken to respectfully by Tom, Dick and Harry, who erstwhile hadn't known of his existence. Warrington was human, and he laughed at his vanity even as it was being gratified.
On the other side the Democrats perfunctorily nominated Donnelly. It was the best they could do, and Donnelly had nothing to learn. And so the fight was on. Donnelly went everywhere; so did Warrington. If Donnelly spoke in the German district, Warrington spoke to the Italians and in their native tongue. Warrington soon learned how to shake hands in the manner of a candidate,—to take the whole hand and squeeze it soundly. The coal-heaver whose hand the dramatist grasped thereupon returned to his friends with the report that the candidate had a good grip, that there was nothing namby-pamby about him, for all his dude clothes. It is the gift of Heaven to win friends and keep them, and Warrington possessed this gift. His good-humored smile, his ready persiflage, his ease in all environments, and his common sense—these were his bucklers. He spoke in dingy halls, on saloon bars, everywhere and anywhere and at all times. It was a great sight to see him lightly mount a bar and expound his politics, his nostrils assailed by cheap tobacco and kerosene lamps. If Donnelly opened a keg of beer, Warrington opened two; if Donnelly gave a picnic, Warrington gave two. And once he presented free matinee tickets to a thousand women. This was a fine stroke of policy. When a man wins a woman to his cause, he wins a valiant champion. Here, then, were a thousand tongues in his service.
His work put enthusiasm into the rank and file of the party, and soon all half-heartedness disappeared and dissensions vanished. He furnished foot-ball suits for the newsboys, torch-light regimentals for the young men's Republican clubs; he spent his own money freely but judiciously; and all the while Donnelly was not far behind. For the first time in the history of local politics the two parties went to work with solid ranks. It promised to be a great campaign. Warrington's influence soon broke the local confines; and the metropolitan newspapers began to prophesy that as Herculaneum went, so would go the state.
Warrington's theatrical manager came up from New York and said he wanted that play at once. The dramatist declared that there would be no play that season. The manager threatened a lawsuit; Warrington remained unmoved. His first duty was to his party; after the first Tuesday in November he would see. This argument found its way to reportorial ears, with the result that it merely added to the young candidate's growing popularity.
It was only occasionally that he saw the Benningtons. His nights were devoted to speech-making or conferences. Sometimes, however, on his way home late at night, he would walk up as far as the old house and look up at the windows; and if he saw a light in Patty's room he would pause for a few minutes, then turn about, Jove limping at his heels. Patty Bennington! The one idyl in his noisy life, the one uplifting influence! He knew that he was not making this fight for clean politics because his heart was in it, but because Patty's was. It is thus that women make the world better, indirectly. Once or twice he had seen Patty in the gallery at mass meetings; but, hurry as he might, he never could get around to the entrance in time to speak to her.
As for McQuade, he knew that between him and that gentleman the war had only begun. He was constantly wondering how McQuade would act; but so far as he could see, McQuade had absolutely nothing to stand on. McQuade would have to tunnel; he could not carry on the war above ground. McQuade would never forgive the result of the dog fight. There had been so much raillery in the newspapers that McQuade became furious whenever it was mentioned. His dog was a professional fighter and had made three kills, and here a "pet" had given him his first licking. It rankled, and none of McQuade's friends dared refer to it. So Warrington remained alert and watchful; it was all he could do.
In more ways than one Herculaneum became widely known. Other cities realized that there was a peculiar strike in progress, upon the outcome of which depended the principles of unionism. Here was an employer who was making preparations to destroy his shops, regardless of financial loss, regardless of public opinion, regardless of everything but his right to employ and discharge whom he willed. Every great employer in the country focused his eye upon Herculaneum; every union leader did likewise. The outcome would mean a kind of revolution.
At the shops the men had placed the usual sentinels around the limits, ready to repel the expected army of non-union workmen. But a day passed, two, three, four; a week, then ten days; a month. Not a single strange man approached the gates. Not one man among them had any information whatever as to the movements of their whilom employer. Scab labor never showed its head above the horizon. The men began to wonder; they began to grow restless. But Morrissy always pacified them with the word "wait."
"Vigilance, boys; that's the word," said the leader. "The moment we go to sleep he'll have his men inside."
So the men relaxed none of their watching, night and day. It was rather pathetic to see the children bringing scanty meals to the guarding men. They were being misled, that was all, but they had to find that out themselves. The city's bill-boards were covered with "Boycott" and "Unfair" paper. The men were careful. They made no effort to injure anything; they made no attempt to enter the shops; they had had a brush with the militia once, and they were wise. They could beat the new men and maim them, but so long as they did not touch property there would be no call for the militia. They waited. Mean-time Morrissy wore a new diamond.
One day a cry went up.
"Here's the scabs! Here they come!"
Word was sent immediately to the union's headquarters.
A body of twenty-odd men, carrying shovels and pickaxes and dinner-pails, moved toward the gates. At their head was Bennington himself. He placed the great key in the lock and swung the gates inward. The men passed in quickly. Bennington was last. He turned for a moment and gazed calmly at the threatening faces of the strikers. An impulse came to him.
"Men," he said, "up to one o'clock this noon these gates will be open to you. Each of you can take up your work where you left it, at the same wages, at the same hours. This is the last chance. Later you will learn that you have been betrayed."
"How about Chittenden?"
"Chittenden will return at the same time you do."
"The hell he will! Let him show his British face here, and we'll change it so his mother won't know it."
Bennington went inside and shut the gates. There was nothing more to be done. He did not slam the gates insolently, as some men would have done; he simply shut them.
This event was also reported at headquarters. That afternoon all the strikers were out in force. They congregated in groups and talked angrily. Two policemen patrolled up and down. Bennington had had some difficulty in securing even these. The men waited for the first sign of smoke from the chimneys, but none came. No one was lighting the furnaces; there was nothing but silence inside the shops. There was no possible excuse as yet for deeds of violence, though many of the more turbulent element urged riot at once. What was the use of waiting? In the afternoon there appeared some fifty more strange men. These carried tool-bags. They were challenged. They ignored the challenge and pushed on resolutely. For the first time blows were struck. The leader whirled around.
"Look here, men, you're making a big mistake. Your fists won't help you. We are going inside, and if we can't go in peaceably, why, we'll break some heads to get in. We have all been sworn in legally as deputy police, and if we start in to break heads we promise to do it thoroughly."
"What are you going to do in there?" demanded Morrissy.
"None of your business, for one thing," answered the burly spokesman of the interlopers. "I'll add this much, if it will ease your minds: nobody's going to step into your jobs; when you went out you left your jobs behind."
"So you fellows are what they call strike-breakers, are you?" asked Morrissy wrathfully.
"Oh, we aren't going to break your strike, my friend. You can call this a strike as long as you please, so far as we're concerned. We've got work to do here, though, and we are going to do it."
"Are you union men?"
"Not so you'd notice it," was the cool reply.
"All right. You fellows won't be here long."
"Stop us if you can. Now, stand aside!" commanded the stranger menacingly.
"Let 'em by, men," cried Morrissy. "Don't touch 'em yet. You just leave it to me. I know a way and a good one, too. You just leave it to me."
The angry strikers divided ranks and the strangers entered the shops.
Morrissy directed his steps to McQuade's office, and together they paid a visit to the mayor.
"Look here, Donnelly, did you permit Bennington to swear in deputy police?" asked McQuade.
"Deputy police? Bennington has no deputy police from this place," answered Donnelly hotly.
"Well, all we know is that he has them," snapped Morrissy.
"Then he has gone directly to the governor."
"The governor?"
McQuade and Morrissy looked at each other blankly.
"He has that prerogative," said Donnelly.
"But he wouldn't dare!"
"Oh, yes, he would. It's his last term; he is without further political ambition; he can act as he pleases, in the face of public condemnation. There's one thing left, though."
"What?"
"Injunction," said Donnelly tersely.
"With Republican judges on the benches?" replied McQuade ironically.
"And you can't enjoin private property," added Morrissy.
"I'll send for Bennington," Donnelly volunteered. "Perhaps I can talk him into reason."
"It's up to you to block this move somehow," said McQuade. "It means the labor vote. And we've got to have that."
"I'll do the best I can. I can stop his permit to tear down the building, if he really intends to do that."
"It will be a good day's work for you."
"I'll act this very afternoon."
Once outside the mayor's office, McQuade turned to Morrissy.
"Where's that receipt you promised on oath?"
"Haven't you got it?" asked Morrissy, feigning surprise.
"No, and I doubt you sent it. But I want it at once, and no more monkeying."
"Well, I sent it. I mailed it to your office. You've overlooked it."
"Come over to my office now and make it out," McQuade insisted.
"You've got plenty of grips on me without that," protested Morrissy reproachfully.
"But I want this one, and I'm going to have it."
"I'll go to your office. Will Donnelly be game?"
"He will if he knows which side his bread is buttered on," contemptuously.
The two went up to McQuade's office. It was deserted.
"The girl's gone this afternoon," said McQuade, "but I can handle the typewriter myself."
"All I've got to say is that I mailed you a receipt. What do you want it for?" with a final protest.
"I've got an idea in my head, Morrissy. I want that receipt. Some day you may take it into your head to testify that I offered you a thousand to bring on the strike at Bennington's. That would put me in and let you out, because I can't prove that I gave the cash to you. Business is business."
"Hell! Any one would think, to hear you talk, that I had threatened to betray."
"Every man to his own skin," replied McQuade philosophically. He then sat down before the typewriter. There were two blank sheets in the roller, with a carbon between. The girl had left her machine all ready for the morrow's work. McQuade picked out his sentence laboriously.
"There, sign that."
The paper read:
"I, James Morrissy, the undersigned, do hereby declare that I have received $1,000, in two sums of $500 each, from Daniel McQuade, these sums being payment agreed upon for my bringing about the strike at the Bennington shops."
Morrissy looked at the boss incredulously.
"I say, Mac, have you gone crazy?" he cried. "Do you want evidence like this lying around in your safe? It's the penitentiary for both of us if any one finds that."
"I know what I am doing," McQuade responded quietly, as indeed he did.
"But look; you've got the strike and I've got the cash; that makes us quits."
"Sign it," was all McQuade replied to this argument.
"All right. What's bad for me is bad for you," and without further ado Morrissy affixed his fist to the sheet.
"Here's the duplicate for you."
Morrissy lighted a match and set fire to the sheet; he stamped on the ashes with grim satisfaction.
"Not for mine," with a laugh. "You're welcome to yours."
McQuade folded his deliberately and put it away in the safe. The sheet of carbon paper he crumpled into a ball and tossed into the waste-basket. We all commit blunders at one time or another, and McQuade had just committed his.
"That's all, Morrissy. I think I can trust you fully. I mean no harm, boy; 'tis only self-preservation."
"Oh, so long as your name's on it there's no kick coming from me; only I never saw you do such a fool thing before. Anything else to-day?"
"No. You might keep tab on that fool Bolles. He's been drunk ever since he came back from New York. And he doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut."
"I'll keep an eye on him."
"He's the only man we have who can handle the dagos. I'll see you up at Dutch Hall to-night. Donnelly is making a speech there, and we'll open a few kegs of beer for the boys."
When Morrissy was gone McQuade laughed softly and went to the safe again. He proceeded to do to his receipt exactly what Morrissy had done to his—burn it. So long as Morrissy believed that McQuade held his signature, so long might Morrissy be trusted. It was only an idea, but it proved that the boss knew his lieutenants tolerably well.
"The blackleg would sell the tomb off his father's grave," he mused, brushing the ashes from his clothes.
Let Bennington rip up his shops; all the better for Donnelly's chances of reelection. The laboring party would be sure to desert Warrington's standard, since he was a personal and intimate friend of Bennington the oppressor. He laughed again sinisterly. Presently he would have them all by the throats. He would watch them squirm, too. This young fool Warrington; he was the first real obstacle he (McQuade) had encountered in his checkered career. Threats could not move him. He had believed at the start that he could scare him away from the convention; but the fool wouldn't be scared. And his damned dog!
"He'll never reach the City Hall, not while I live, damn his impudence! That woman, though, is no fool. She's kept her mouth shut. They don't always do that. Well, I can write more than receipts on the machine. I'll ruin them both if I can. Ordered me out of the house, and I honestly liked the woman! But I'll square accounts presently."
Meanwhile Donnelly set the wires humming. He finally got Bennington at the shops.
"This is Mr. Bennington. Who is it and what is wanted?"
"This is the mayor talking."
"Oh! Well, what is it, Mr. Donnelly?"
"I must see you at once in my office. This is an urgent request. I can't explain the matter over the wire. But you'll do yourself and me a great favor if you'll come into town at once."
"Very important?"
"Extremely so."
"I shall be there at five o'clock."
"Thanks. I shall await you." Donnelly hung up the receiver, very well satisfied.
Bennington understood. Politics was going to take a hand in the game. After all, it was best to take the bull by the horns at once and have it over with. He knew how well he had fortified himself against any political machinery. So, promptly at a quarter to five, he departed, leaving explicit orders with his subordinates. The strikers moved aside for him, muttering and grumbling, but they made no effort to impede his progress. There were groans and catcalls, but that was all. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, but presented his back to them fearlessly. Chittenden, upon Bennington's advice, had gone to New York. The strikers would have used him roughly, could they have laid hands on him.
Arriving in town, Bennington went at once to the City Hall and straight to the mayor's private office.
"Well, Mr. Donnelly?" he began, his hat on his handsome head and his cane behind his back, neither offensive nor defensive.
Donnelly closed the door leading to the clerk's office and came back to his desk. He waved his hand toward a chair. If he could bend this young hot-head, it would be a victory worth while, politically.
"In the first place, Mr. Bennington, aren't you going a little too hard on the men?"
"That was their lookout; they had every chance to think the matter over, to examine all sides of the question."
"You went personally to the governor for deputy police. Why didn't you come to me?"
"The governor is a personal friend of mine."
"I don't believe that I have been found lacking in justice," said Donnelly thoughtfully.
"I can't say that you have. But I was in a hurry, and could not wait for the local machinery to move."
"You have placed armed men in your shops without a justifiable cause."
"The men are mechanics, sworn in for their own self-protection."
Donnelly saw that he was making no impression.
"These men, then, are to tear down your shops?" not without admiration.
"Well, they are there to dismantle it."
"That building must not go down, Mr. Bennington."
"'Must not'? Do I understand you to say 'must not'?"
"Those words exactly."
"It is private property, Mr. Donnelly; it was not organized under corporation laws."
"You can not destroy even private property, in a city, without a legal permit."
"I have that."
"And I shall call a special meeting of the Common Council to rescind your permit."
"Do so. I shall tear it down, nevertheless. I shall do what I please with what is my own." Bennington balanced on his heels.
"The law is there."
"I shall break it, if need says must," urbanely.
Donnelly surveyed the end of his dead cigar.
"The men will become violent."
"Their violence will in no wise hinder me, so long as they confine it to the shops. Even then I shall call upon you for police protection."
"And if I should not give it?"
"Just now I am sure you will. For the mayor of Herculaneum to refuse me my rights would be a nice morsel for the Republican party."
Donnelly passed over this.
"I wish to protect the rights of the workman, just as you wish to protect yours."
"What are the workman's rights?"
Donnelly did not reply.
"Well, I'll reply for you, then. His right is to sell his labor to the highest bidder; his right is to work where he pleases; for what hours he desires; his right is to reject abusive employers and to find those congenial; his right is to produce as little or as much as he thinks best; his right is to think for himself, to act for himself, to live for himself."
"You admit all this, then?" asked Donnelly in astonishment.
"I have never so much as denied a single right that belongs to the workman."
"Then what the devil is all this row about?"
"If the workman has his rights, shall not the employer have his?"
Donnelly mused. He would not be able to do anything with this plain-spoken man.
"But the workman steps beyond. He has no right to dictate to his employer as to what HIS rights shall be. Where there is no amity between capital and labor there is never any justice; one or the other becomes a despot. The workman has his rights, but these end where the other man's rights begin. He shall not say that another man shall not seek work, shall not sell his labor for what he can get; he has no right to forbid another man's choosing freedom; he has no right to say that a manufacturer shall produce only so much."
"Well, I've only to say," said Donnelly, hedging before this clear argument, "I've only to say, if the men become violent, look out for yourself."
"I shall appeal to you for civic or military protection; if you refuse it, to the governor; if politics there interferes, I shall appeal to Washington, where neither your arm nor McQuade's can reach. I understand the causes back of this strike; they are personal, and I'm man enough to look out for myself. But if politics starts to work, there will be a trouble to settle in the courts. You may not know the true cause of this strike, Mr. Donnelly, but I do. The poor deluded men believe it to be the English inventor, but he is only a blind. Had you really wished to do me a favor, you would have spoken to the men before they went out on this silly strike. But I am master of what is mine, and I shall tear down that building. I shall tolerate no interference from any man. The workman has his rights; this is one of my rights, and I intend to use it."
"It's your business. If you are fool enough to kill a golden goose, it's no affair of mine. But I shall rescind your permit, however. I believe it to be my duty."
"Call your Council together, Mr. Donnelly. You can not get a quorum together earlier than to-morrow night; and by that time I shall have the work done. You say you will not afford me protection. Very well; if the men become violent and burn the shops, I shall be relieved of the expense of tearing them down. Good afternoon."
Donnelly sat in his chair for a quarter of an hour, silent and thoughtful. Suddenly he slapped his thigh.
"I don't know what McQuade has against that man, but, by the Lord! he IS a man!"
That night the strikers received several bottles of whisky and a keg of beer. The source of these gifts was unknown. Some of the more thoughtful were for smashing the stuff, but the turbulent majority overruled them. They began to drink and jest. They did so with impunity. For some reason the police had been withdrawn. The hammering inside the shops puzzled them, but they still clung to the idea that all this clamor was only a ruse to frighten them into surrendering. From the interior the pounding gradually approached as far as the walls of the courtyard. At midnight one of these walls went thundering to the ground. A few minutes later another fell. The strikers grouped together, dismayed.
"By God, boys," one of them yelled, "he's tearing it down!"
In that moment, and only then, did they realize that they had been dealing with a man whose will and word were immutable. They saw all their dreams of triumph vanish in the dust that rose from the crumbling brick and plaster. And dismay gave way to insensate rage. It would only be helping Bennington to riot and burn the shops, so now to maim and kill the men who, at hire, were tearing down these walls.
"Come on, boys! We'll help the scabs finish the work! Come on!"
There was now a great breach in the wall. Men moving to and fro could be seen. The strikers snatched up bricks and clubs and dashed toward this. But ere they had set foot on the rubbish they stopped. Half a dozen resolute men faced them. They were armed.
"That's far enough, boys," warned a powerful voice. "I told you we have all been sworn in as deputy police, with all the laws of the state back of us. The first man that steps across that pile of bricks will go to the hospital, the second man to the undertaker."