"Take up the pencils!" commanded H. R.
The members acted as if the pencils were rattlesnakes.
"Did you hear me?" asked H. R., calmly.
They trembled. But they were not slaves. No man can be compelled to write in a free country.
By feeding these men H. R. had given them the courage to refuse to obey him! Was the food an error, as charitable philosophers have declared?
The pencils remained untouched before the men. Fleming was the only one who obeyed. But he was by now almost a capitalist—he was a distributor of meal-tickets.
"Mutiny!" muttered Andrew Barrett, and looked anxiously at his chief. How would H. R. meet this crisis? The absolute control of the New York papers hung in the balance.
But H. R. merely asked, pleasantly, "Ready?"
Not a man stirred. They had forgotten that he could fight!
"I will dictate and each of you must write down what I say. I want to know how well you can write."