ople there before he got through--and the
thing'll spread."

"Speech?--what about?" said Hastings. "He's always shooting off his
mouth. He'd better stop talking and go to work at some honest
business."

"He's got on to the fact that this strike is a put-up job--that the
company hired labor detectives in Chicago last winter to come down here
and get hold of the union. He gave names--amounts paid--the whole damn
thing."

"Um," said Hastings, rubbing his skinny hands along the shiny
pantaloons over his meagre legs. "Um."

"But that ain't all," pursued Kelly. "He read out a list of the men
told off to pretend to set fire to the car barns and start the
riot--those Chicago chaps, you know."

"I don't know anything about it," said Hastings sharply.

Kelly smiled slightly--amused scorn. It seemed absurd to him for the
old man to keep up the pretense of ignorance. In fact, Hastings was
ignorant--of the details. He was not quite the aloof plutocrat of the
modern school, who permits himself to know nothing of details beyond
the dividend rate and similar innocent looking results of causes at
which sometimes hell itself would shudder. But, while he was more
active than the conscience-easing devices now working smoothly made
necessary, he never permitted himself to know any unnecessary criminal
or wicked fact about his enterprises.

"I don't know," he repeated. "And I don't want to know."

"Anyhow, Dorn gave away the whole thing. He even read a copy of your
letter of introduction to the governor--the one you--according to
Dorn--gave Fillmore when you sent him up to the Capitol to arrange for
the invitation to come after the riot."

Hastings knew that the boss was deliberately "rubbing it in" because
Hastings--that is, Hastings' agents had not invited Kelly to assist in
the project for "teaching the labor element a much needed lesson." But
knowledge of Kelly's motive did not make the truth he was telling any
less true--the absurd mismanagement of the whole affair, with the
result that Dorn seemed in the way to change it from a lesson to labor
on the folly of revolt against their kind and generous but firm
employers into a provoker of fresh and fiercer revolt--effective
revolt--political revolt. So, as Kelly "rubbed," Hastings visibly
winced and writhed.

Kelly ended his recital with: "The speech created a hell of a
sensation, Mr. Hastings. That young chap can talk."

"Yes," snapped Hastings. "But he can'