turned to a steaming
breakfast which the porter had just brought from a caf['e] across the
street. The postman came in, grave-faced and silent, and left a big
bundle of letters on the secretary's desk. Most of the mail was
official, but now and then there came letters from personal friends who
held similar positions on other roads, assuring the general manager of
their sympathy, and that they would aid his company whenever they could
do so secretly and without exciting their own employees.

Many letters came from stockholders protesting vigorously against a
continuation of the strike. Some anonymous letters warned the company
that great calamity awaited the management, unless the demands of the
employees were acceded to and the strike ended. A glance into the
newspapers that came in, showed that three-fourths of the press of the
country praised the management and referred to the strikers as
dynamiters and anarchists. The other fourth rejoiced at each drop in the
stocks and called every man a martyr who was arrested at the instigation
of the railroad company. The reports sent out daily by the company and
those collected at the headquarters of the strikers agreed exactly as to
date, but disagreed in all that followed.

The secretary, somewhat refreshed by a good breakfast, waded through the
mail, making marks and notations occasionally with a blue pencil on the
turned down corners of letters.

Some of the communications were referred to the general traffic manager,
some to the general passenger agent, others to the superintendent of
motive power and machinery. They were all sorted carefully and deposited
in wicker baskets, bearing the initials of the different departments.
Many were dropped into the basket marked "G. M." but most of the matter
was disposed of by the secretary himself, for the chief clerk of a great
railway system, having the signature of the General Manager, is one of
the busiest, and usually one of the brightest men in the company's
employ.

The general manager in his private office pored over the morning papers,
puffing vigorously now and then as he perused a paragraph that praised
the strikers, but, when the literature was to his liking, smoked slowly
and contentedly, like a man without a care.

Such were the scenes and conditions in and about the general offices of
the Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company when a light foot-step
was heard in the hall and a gentle voice came singing: