Marrin tried to shout:
"I order you to get to work!"
But a tumult drowned his voice, a busy clamor, an exultant jabber of tongues, a rising, a shuffling, a moving about.
Sally marched down the aisle.
"Follow me, girls! We're going to have a union!"
It might have been the Pied Piper of Hamelin whistling up the rats—there was a hurrying, a scurrying, a weird laughter, a blowing about of words, and the two hundred, first swallowing up Sally, crowded the doorway, moved slowly, pushed, shoved, wedged through, and disappeared, thundering, shouting and laughing, down the steps. The two hundred, always so subdued, so easily bossed, so obedient and submissive, had risen and gone.
Marrin looked apoplectic. He rushed over to where the forty-four men were sitting like frightened animals. He spoke to the one nearest him.
"Who was that girl? I've seen her somewhere!"
"She?" the man stammered. "That's Joe Blaine's girl."
"Joe Blaine!" cried Marrin.