"It's a lie, you know it's a lie! We've come to show you up. We've come to take old man Rawn and you out of this place. We ought to ride him on a rail, and you with him! That's what we ought to do! We want that money." The leader advanced toward him menacingly.
"Why, men, I have not got your money—" expostulated Halsey. "If I had, this isn't the way to get it from me! I've always used you fellows square! You've got to act that way with me. I'm in trouble now, I tell you. My wife's dead, and my baby—to-day—in here. You are accusing the best friend you have got! Where's Jim Sullivan? Where's Tim Carney? Where's any of you men that used to work with me there in the factory? Any one of you ought to know better."
"They ain't here; but don't talk that to us! We know what you was doing with them machines. We know what you was up to. You wanted to take the bread out of our mouths! We seen it all in the papers, the whole thing, plain enough. No wonder you kept it all blind as you could—you wanted to put us off the earth."
"It's a lie!" cried Halsey sternly. "I broke them up. I threw up my job. I quit because I didn't want to see the bread taken out of your mouths. I stood between the company and just what you say. I wouldn't allow them to make it harder for you than it was. I never lost you a cent of wages—I stood for you all the time, I'm with you now. Why, men, I've been at your meetings, I'm one of you! Don't you know? Don't you remember? You've never asked a thing of me I haven't tried to do, that was in reason. You know me! What difference about the union if I'm your sort?"
"Yes, ve do know you!" broke in a squat and pallid Jew, forcing himself through the thick to the front, and usurping the place of the wavering leader. "By Gott, ve do know you, Mister Halsey! You'fe lied to us, that's vat you'fe done! You'fe been to our meetings, yess, but you'fe betrayed us! I seen you there, yess!"
"That's not true!" answered Halsey hotly. "There isn't a word of truth in it! I've lost everything in the world I've got just because that isn't true. My wife's lying dead in that house back there—just because of that! My child's dead there too—just because of that—I've lost everything in the world I have got—just because that isn't true!"
III
The Jew shrieked aloud, half-insane. "To hell vith this country!" he said. "To hell vith the rich that rob us. If your vife's dead, it iss vat's right. My vife, she'll die too, she's starring. To hell vith Rawn and all like him!"
"Look here, my men, that's about enough of that!" rejoined Halsey. "You're drunk or crazy, and we're not going to stand for that here. It's no place for this kind of talk. I tell you, I've done all I could for you. I haven't sided with Rawn. If I had, I could be rich to-day."
"You are rich!" cried the Jew; "and ve are poor. You eat fat, you sleep soft. You are rich! But vat do ve get? I'm hungry! My folks—they are starfing! Ve haf no money. Ve get no money for vork ve did so long. It buys us nothing now. Meat is no more for us; breat, hardly. This iss no country for the people. This iss no land vere laws are just. This iss no republic of man. Jehovah, send Thy power! Smite and spare not, this so wrong a land!"