own the avenue, so silent of
its horse-car bells, he saw a policeman at every corner. It was rather
impressive.

III.

The strike made a good deal of talk in it he office of 'Every Other
Week' that is, it made Fulkerson talk a good deal. He congratulated
himself that he was not personally incommoded by it, like some of the
fellows who lived uptown, and had not everything under one roof, as
it were. He enjoyed the excitement of it, and he kept the office boy
running out to buy the extras which the newsmen came crying through the
street almost every hour with a lamentable, unintelligible noise. He
read not only the latest intelligence of the strike, but the editorial
comments on it, which praised the firm attitude of both parties, and
the admirable measures taken by the police to preserve order. Fulkerson
enjoyed the interviews with the police captains and the leaders of the
strike; he equally enjoyed the attempts of the reporters to interview
the road managers, which were so graphically detailed, and with such
a fine feeling for the right use of scare-heads as to have almost the
value of direct expression from them, though it seemed that they had
resolutely refused to speak. He said, at second-hand from the papers,
that if the men behaved themselves and respected the rights of property,
they would have public sympathy with them every time; but just as soon
as they began to interfere with the roads' right to manage their own
affairs in their own way, they must be put down with an iron hand; the
phrase "iron hand" did Fulkerson almost as much good as if it had never
been used before. News began to come of fighting between the police and
the strikers when the roads tried to move their cars with men imported
from Philadelphia, and then Fulkerson rejoiced at the splendid courage
of the police. At the same time, he believed what the strikers said,
and that the trouble was not made by them, but by gangs of roughs acting
without their approval. In this juncture he was relieved by the arrival
of the State Board of Arbitration, which took up its quarters, with a
great many scare-heads, at one of the principal hotels, and invited the
roads and the strikers to lay the matter in dispute before them; he
said that now we should see the working of the greatest piece of social
machinery in modern times. But it appeared to work only in the alacrity
of the strikers to submit their grievance. The road; were as one road in
declaring