"There are plenty that will be glad enough to take their places, though."
"I suppose so, but all the same I maintain that these companies that are amply able to treat their men better, ought to do so. I believe in fair play. It pays best in the end to say nothing of the right and wrong of it."
"Think the company will give in?" questioned one.
"Guess not. I hear that the superintendent has telegraphed to New York and Chicago for men."
"There'll be trouble if they come!" exclaimed the first speaker.
"I believe," said another man, joining the group, "I believe that Sanders is responsible for all this trouble--or the most of it, anyhow. He's a disagreeable, overbearing fellow who--even when he grants a favor, which is seldom enough--does it in a mean, exasperating fashion that takes all the pleasure out of it. I had some dealings with him once, and I never want anything more to do with him. If he'd been half-way decent to the men there would never have been any strike, in my opinion."
Sanders was the superintendent of the road where the trouble was.
"You're right about Sanders," said another. "I always have wondered how he could keep his position. These strikes though, never seem to me to do any real good to the cause of the strikers, and a great many of the men realise that too, but these walking delegate fellows get 'round 'em and persuade 'em that a strike is going to end all their troubles--and so it goes. I saw that little sneak--Tom Steel--buttonholing the motormen, and cramming them with his lies, as I came along just now. There's always mischief where Tom Steel is."
By this time Theodore had finished his work, and he left the office, his head full of strikes, superintendents, and walking delegates, and wherever he went that day, the strike was the only subject discussed.
He stopped work earlier than usual, finding himself infected with the prevailing unrest and excitement. He found the sidewalks of the principal business streets thronged with men, women and boys, all pressing in one direction.