smiting him.

"Najib," he continued after a minute of concentrated thought, "you have
sense enough to know one thing: You have sense enough to know you people
can't get that extra pay till I write to Mr. Cabell and demand it for
you. There's not another one of you who can write English. There's no
one here but yourself who can speak or understand it or make shift to
spell out a few English words in print And Mr. Cabell doesn't know a
word of Arabic--let alone the Arabic script. And your own two years at
Coney Island must have shown you that no New Yorkers would know how to
read an Arabic letter to him. Now I swear to you, by every Christian and
Moslem oath, that _I_ shan't write such a letter! So how are you going
to get word to him that you people are on strike and that you won't do
another lick of work till you get double pay and half time? How are you
going to do that?"

Najib's solid face went blank. Here at last was an argument that struck
home. He had known Kirby for years, long enough to know that the
American was most emphatically a man of his word. If Kirby swore he
would not act as the men's intermediary with the company, then
decisively Kirby would keep his oath. And Najib realized the futility of
getting any one else to write such a letter in any language which the
Cabell Smelting Company's home office would decipher.

He peered up at Kirby with disconsolate astonishment. Quick to take
advantage of the change, the manager hurried on:

"Now, the men are on strike. That's understood. Well what are you and
they going to do about it? When the draft for the monthly pay roll comes
to the bank, at Jerusalem as usual, I shall refuse to indorse it. I give
you my oath on that, too. I am not going to distribute the company's
cash among a bunch of strikers. Without my signature, the bank won't
cash the draft. You know that. Well, how are you going to live, all of
you, on nothing a month? When the present stock of provisions gives out
I'm not going to order them renewed. And the provision people in
Jerusalem won't honour any one's order for them but mine. This is the
only concern in Syria to-day that pays within forty per cent, of the
wages you chaps are getting. With no pay and no food you're due to find
your strike rather costly. For when the mine shuts down I'm going back
to America. There'll be nothing to keep me here. I'll be ruined, in any
case. You people will find yourself without money or provisions. And if