“Blast it, why didn’t you mention it then?” returned Mr. Greenough. But the treasurer retired in confusion behind his books and did not answer.
“Well, Villard,” continued the agent, “I hope now you will give up the Utopian schemes you’ve been nursing for the elevation of the laboring classes. You see just what a foolish, unthinking, unreliable set of men we have to deal with.”
“On the contrary, sir,” returned the second superintendent, firmly, “I sympathize, to a degree, with them. I agree that they have taken an inopportune time to enforce their views, and regret that they could not have seen fit to keep at work while their petition was being considered; and I would advise——”
“I want no man’s advice until I ask it,” interrupted the elder man. “This is our first strike, and it shall be the last so long as I have authority here. Humph! They think they can intimidate me! They have chosen this time because they think I must yield now. They little know me. Otis Greenough has not run the Shawsheen Mills successfully thirty years, to be brow-beaten and conquered in the end by a pack of ignorant laborers.”
“But how is this to end?” asked the first superintendent, speaking for the first time.
“It can end whenever these men will take back their impudent paper and go to work. Villard, when they show up again—four o’clock did you say?—you will tell them so. Offer them a chance to go to work to-morrow morning on the old terms. You needn’t give in to them one inch. Do you hear? Not a jot or tittle.”
“And what if they do not accept?” asked Villard.
“Why, advertise. Advertise far and near. Get new help. We’ll open the mills and run them, too, right in their very teeth. I’ll show them that he who has been master here for thirty years is master until he dies.”
III.
The choleric agent’s blood was fairly up, and he now set himself to plan for the coming warfare. When the committee from the labor union made its appearance at four o’clock, the agent refused to treat directly with them. He retired to his inner office, whence issued a moment later an “open letter to the employes of the Shawsheen Mills.” The circular was composed and written entirely by himself, and was quite characteristic of his high-handed authority. It stated that “as the control of an owner over his property was guaranteed by the law of the land, and was of such unquestionable character as ought not to be meddled with by any other individual or combination of individuals, the agent of the Shawsheen Mills, acting for their owner, would brook no such interference as had been attempted.” But, in bombastic language, he went on to say that, on account of the pressure of work, he offered to take back into the mills such operatives as, after a day’s idleness and a night’s calm reflection, might decide to come back peacefully, and accept the old conditions. The circular closed by adding that all returning operatives must renounce their connection with the new Labor Union, and stating that the Shawsheen Mills would be immediately re-opened.