Levine, a youngster with very curly black hair, a wilted collar, and soaked shirt, jumped up to greet Yetta.
"Hello," he shouted above the din of the typewriters and machines. "Here's a note from Isadore. He's out trying to raise money. I hope to God you can help us. Locke's sick. I'm running his desk and mine and Isadore's this morning. Harry's covering the Party News and Woman's Page besides his Telegraph and Exchanges, so that Sam can cover the State Convention. How in hell they expect us to get out a paper so short-handed is—"
"Oh, stop your croaking," Harry Moore yelled from his table, hardly looking up from a pile of Labor Papers he was clipping. "Things are no worse than usual. We'll get her out somehow. We always do. God's good to drunks and fools and Socialists."
One of the bookkeepers, from the "business" side of the railing, overhearing this "editorial" controversy, began to count at the top of his voice.
"One! Two! Three!"
At "Three" every one in the room, except Yetta and Levine, chanted in unison:—
"O-o-oh! Cut it out and work for Socialism!"
"You make me tired," Levine growled back at them, and sat down at his table with a despairing gesture.
Isadore's note told Yetta that a small but desperate strike had broken out among some paper-box factories in an out-of-the-way corner of Brooklyn. The workers were recently arrived immigrants who spoke no English. The regular papers had not mentioned the strike, and under cover of this secrecy, the bosses, who were allied with prominent Kings County politicians, were having everything their own way. He thought there was a big story in it. The publicity would certainly help the strikers. There was no one in the office to cover it.
Not a word of their last night's encounter.