"For Heaven's sake," said Robertson, "quit your swearing! Make a hole in the wall behind you and hustle with your story!"
"This'll mean at least a column in the Telegraph," mused Robertson as the story neared its end. But he was already listening with one ear to what was going on in the big room, whence the sharp, clear tones of a speaker could be heard through the suffocating tobacco fumes. Over the heads of the attentive crowd hung a few gas-lamps, the globes of which looked like large oranges. Robertson gave his Mott Street hero the promised two dollar bill and then made his way to the rear room. Standing in the doorway, he could clearly distinguish the words of the speaker, who was apparently protesting in the name of some workmen against a large manufacturer who had at noon dismissed three thousand of them.
The orator, who was standing on a table in the rear of the room, looked like a swaying shadow through the smoke, but his loud appeal completely filled the room, and the soul-stirring pictures he drew of the misery of the workmen, who had been turned out on the streets at the word of the millionaire manufacturer, caused his hearers' cheeks to burn with excitement.
"—and therefore," concluded the speaker, "we will not submit to the absolutely selfish action of Mr. Hanbury. As leader of our Union I ask you all to return to work at the factory to-morrow at the usual hour, and we will then assert our right to employment by simply continuing our work and ignoring our dismissal. Of course the simplest and most convenient thing for Mr. Hanbury is to shut down his plant and skip with his millions to the other side. But we demand that the factory be kept running, and if our wages aren't paid, we'll find means for getting them. Our country cannot fight the enemy even with a thousand millionaires. When the American people take the field to fight for the maintenance of American society and the American state, they have a right to demand that the families they are compelled to leave at home shall at least be suitably cared for. Again I say: We'll keep Mr. Hanbury's factory open."
The air shook with thunderous applause, and a firm determination lighted up hundreds of faces, wrinkled and scarred from work and worry. And who would have dared oppose these men when animated by a single thought and a common purpose? Again and again enthusiastic shouts filled the room, and the speaker was assured that not a man present would fail to be on hand the next morning.
Leaning against the door-post, Robertson made notes of this occurrence also and then looked round in a vain endeavor to find a means of escape from the suffocating atmosphere. While doing so his glance fell on the spot where only a few moments before he had observed the swaying shadow of the speaker. The latter's place had been taken by another, who was making a frantic but vain effort to secure quiet and attention. With his arms waving in the air he looked through the murky atmosphere for all the world like a quickly turning wind-mill.
Gradually the applause ceased, while everybody in the room, Robertson included, was startled by the announcement of the chairman that Mr. Hanbury was most anxious to address the assemblage. A moment of astonished silence and then Bedlam broke loose. "What, Mr. Hanbury wants to speak?" "Not the old one, the young one!" "He must be mad. What does he want here?" "Three cheers for Mr. Hanbury!" "Down with him! We don't want him here, we can manage our own affairs!" "Let him speak!" "Three cheers for Mr. Hanbury!" "Be quiet, damn you, why don't you shut up?" These and other similarly emphatic shouts reached Robertson's ears. He hunted for his last pencil in his vest-pocket, and when he looked up again, he saw through the cloud of smoke a tall, refined person standing on the table.
"We don't want to be discharged! Don't let our wives starve!" the voices began again, and it was some time before it became possible for the speaker to make himself heard.
"Is that really Mr. Hanbury?" Robertson asked one of his neighbors.
"Yes, the son."