“Listen.” The voice beside Slack was terrible in its cold intensity. “The zero hour in the history of the North Star is about to strike. Strong men alone can guide its destinies through that critical hour; the North Star will brook no vacillating weakling at its helm when it heads out into the teeth of the tempest.
“I am authorised to bring you this message: The fiat of J.C.X. is that you accept his recent instructions and carry them out to the letter or immediately vacate the presidency of the North Star.”
IV
All the smug self-confidence had gone out of Slack, leaving him a towering mass of perspiring flabbiness. But there was a mulish streak in him that prevailed in the face of his trepidation.
He started to hark back to his primal grievance. “If it wasn’t for this strike—”
“Forget the strike!” cut in Acey Smith. “The strike of the tugmen is a side-issue that will be forgotten long before a general election can be got under way. It will last only so long as it serves the ends of the North Star—a couple of weeks at the very most. But it must last until word comes from J.C.X. to settle it. The men will then be reinstated on their own terms with full back pay for the time they have been idle. The North Star wants no hardship to come to its men out of this incident. And, if the Hon. J. J. Slack, M.P., is then still president of the company, he shall have the full credit for making the magnanimous settlement.”
Slack’s face brightened. “I begin to see the light,” he acknowledged.
“And the object?”
“Yes. This strike will preclude delivery of the poles at Nannabijou Bay to the Kam City Company’s mills in time for them to live up to their agreement with the government.”
“And they’d thus automatically forfeit their rights on the Nannabijou Limits,” added Acey Smith, but the queer, half-pitying ghost of a smile that flickered at the corners of his mouth escaped the politician.