sk is
utterly absurd. No road can do business on any such principles as that.
Even if these discharged men did not richly deserve their discharge,
what affair is it of yours? You are switchmen. You've never had a
grievance that I know of. You never would have come to me with such a
demand in this world but that you had been bamboozled or bulldozed into
it by fellows who have no earthly connection with you, and whose only
business in life is to go round stirring up trouble among honest men,
living on their contributions, and taking precious good care to keep out
of the way when the clash comes. No, lads. I've been your friend, and
you know it. Between you and injustice of any kind I'm as ready to stand
to-day as ever before, but I'd be no friend of yours. I'd deserve your
contempt as well as that of our employers and the whole people, if I
allowed my freight handlers to dictate to me whose freight they should
handle. Those men courted discharge and they got it. Out they went and
out they stay if I have to handle every pound of freight myself."

There was dead silence a moment in the office. The committeemen stood
uneasily before their old friend and chief; three of them looked as
though they wished they hadn't come and wanted to quit, two were more
determined. It was one of these who spoke.

"Then, Mr. Williams, you refuse to listen to our appeal for justice!"

Mr. Williams whirled around in his chair, sharply confronting the
speaker; his clear blue eyes seemed to look him through and through, a
flush almost of anger swept over his face a moment, and he waited before
he spoke. He had picked up a ruler, and was lightly tapping the edge of
the desk as he tilted back in his chair.

"Your name is Stoltz, I believe. I refuse nothing of the kind, and you
know it. I have listened with more patience than it deserved. None of
these, the old hands, would have hinted at such a thing, and if they and
their fellows will take the advice of a man they've known ten years to
your ten months they'll not again be led by a word-juggler. Now if
there's any other matter any of the rest of you wish to bring up," and
here the Superintendent looked frankly around upon the anxious, almost
crest-fallen faces of the other men, "I'll listen to you gladly, but
you, Stoltz, have been far too short a time an employe of the road to
presume to speak for those who have served it almost as long as I have."

"Yes, and what have they got for it? Do they