“Haven’t yees now? Well, I’ll spake to yees. Yer foine lookin’ little b’ys to be takin’ the brid from the mouth of the wurrukin’ mon an’ his childer, so ye are. I’ve a moind to knock the hids aff yees.”
“Move on there, Mickey,” commanded a policeman.
“Shure I will; but moind this, the hul of yees: We have min enough, an’ there’s more comin’ from Hamilton, to take all the arrums yees have up there to the school-house beyant, and there’ll not be a soldier nor a polace lift the night. We’ll trample them into the ground like the dirt under our feet; an’ so we will do with all the big min who want to grind down the wurrukin’ mon; ain’t that so, me brave b’ys?”
The “brave boys” who were standing around did not confirm these words, and neither did they deny them. They looked sullen and savage, and the two sergeants were glad to hurry on and leave them out of sight.
“He said they were going to clean us out to-night, did he,” exclaimed Don, when Bert had finished his story. “Well, they will have a good time of it. Some of the boys are pretty fair shots.”
“Oh, I hope it won’t come to that,” said Sergeant Elmer.
“So do I,” said Don. “But there’s only one way to reason with a mob, and that is to thrash them soundly.”
“I don’t see why that man should pitch into us,” observed Bert. “If he would go to work, he would get bread enough for himself and his children. If the working man is ‘ground down’ we had no hand in it.”
“Of course not,” said Egan. “But you wear a uniform and are supposed to be strongly in favor of law and order.”