sit in a swell office, ride
in parlor cars, drive fast horses, sport handsome clothes--" began
Stoltz, sneeringly.

"That's enough, Stoltz. They know that with a railway as with an army
the men can't all be generals and colonels. Say to your friends, boys,"
he continued, in kindly tone, "that when they want anything of the road
hereafter they'll be far more apt to get it by coming themselves than by
sending Stoltz. That's all, then."

"No, it isn't all!" declaimed Stoltz, angrily. "You haven't heard our
side. If those three men ain't back in their places at twelve o'clock,
we of the Switchmen's Union go out to a man," and the spokesman paused
to let this announcement have its due effect. It had.

"So far as one of the Union is concerned he goes out here and now, and
that one," said Mr. Williams, "is yourself. The others will, I hope,
think twice before they act."

"You mean I'm discharged?"

"On the spot," said Mr. Williams, "and there is the door."

For hours that hot June day had the story of that interview sped from
tongue to tongue. The managers of the Switchmen's Union had been shrewd
and wise in naming as members of their committee three of the oldest,
stanchest, and most faithful hands in the employ of the company. They
were sure of a hearing. Then to do the aggressive, this comparatively
new man, Stoltz, was named, together with a kindred spirit of less
ability, and these two men were the backbone, so said the managers, of
the first attack. Stoltz was a German-American of good education, though
deeply imbued with socialistic theories, and a seductive, plausible
speaker on the theme of the wrongs of the laboring man. It was he who,
under the guidance of shrewd agitators and "walking delegates," had been
most active and denunciatory at the switchmen's meetings. Honest
laboring men are slow of speech, as a rule, and fluency often impresses
them where logic would have no effect. The committee came away, two of
them exultant and eager for the fray. They had been disdainfully
treated, said they, sneered at, reviled, and one of them summarily
"fired" as the result of this visit to the magnate. The others were
gloomily silent. It was too late to recede. The javelin was already
thrown. At the stroke of five every man on duty quietly quit his post.
Many left the yard. Others, eager to see what the officials might do,
remained. Stopped at the outskirts of the city, no trains came in. Only
the evening mail crept out,