At twelve o'clock precisely Mr. Schwartz, a round, bullet-headed German, entered the room, turned his revolving-chair, and began to cut the six envelopes heaped up before him on his desk, reading the prices aloud as he opened them in succession, the clerk recording. The first four were from parties in outside villages. Then came McGaw's:—
“Forty-nine cents for coal, etc.”
So far he was lowest. Quigg twisted his hat nervously, and McGaw's coarse face grew red and white by turns.
Tom's bid was the last.
“Thomas Grogan, Rockville, S.I., thirty-eight cents for coal, etc.”
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Schwartz, quietly, “Thomas Grogan gets the hauling.”
VIII. POP MULLINS'S ADVICE
Almost every man and woman in the tenement district knew Oscar Schwartz, and had felt the power of his obstinate hand during the long strike of two years before, when, the Union having declared war, Schwartz had closed the brewery for several months rather than submit to its dictation. The news, therefore, that the Union had called a meeting and appointed a committee to wait on Mr. Schwartz, to protest against his giving work to a non-union woman filled them with alarm. The women remembered the privations and suffering of that winter, and the three dollars a week doled out to them by the Central Branch, while their husbands, who had been earning two and three dollars a day, were drinking at O'Leary's bar, playing cards, or listening to the encouraging talk of the delegates who came from New York to keep up their spirits. The brewery employed a larger number of men than any other concern in Rockville, so trouble with its employees meant serious trouble for half the village if Schwartz defied the Union and selected a non-union woman to do the work.
They knew, too, something of the indomitable pluck and endurance of Tom Grogan. If she were lowest on the bids, she would fight for the contract, they felt sure, if it took her last dollar. McGaw was a fool, they said, to bid so high; he might have known she would cut his throat, and bring them no end of trouble.