Something unusual was in the air, and the three men were at once aware of it. The uneasiness, that had prevailed in the sheds and at The Gore during the past month, was evidently coming to a crisis now that the men's pay was two weeks overdue.
Emlie looked grave on replying, after a pause in which the three were busy taking note of the constantly increasing crowd in front of the town hall:
"I don't blame you, Colonel; there'll be the deuce to pay if the men don't get paid off by Monday noon. They've been uneasy now so long about the piece work settlement, that this last delay is going to be the match that fires the train—and no slow match either from the looks; I don't understand this delay. When did Romanzo send his last message?"
"About an hour ago, but he hasn't had any answer yet," replied the Colonel, shading his eyes with his hat to look up street at the town hall crowd. "He has been telephoning and telegraphing off and on for the last two weeks; but he can't get any satisfaction—corporations, you know, don't materialize just for the rappings."
"What does Champney say?" inquired Mr. Wiggins.
"State of the market," said the Colonel laconically.
The men did not look at one another, for each was feeling a certain degree of indignation, of humiliation and disappointment that one of their own, Champney Googe, should go back on Flamsted to the extent of allowing the "market" to place the great quarry interests, through non-payment of the workers, in jeopardy.
"Has Romanzo heard direct from him to-day?" asked Emlie.
"No; the office replied he was out of the city for Saturday and Sunday; didn't give his address but asked if we could keep the men quiet till the middle of next week when the funds would be forwarded."
"I wired our New York exchange yesterday," said Emlie, "but they can't give us any information—answered things had gone to pot pretty generally with certain securities, but Flamsted was all right,—not tied up in any of them. Of course, they know the standing of the syndicate. There'll have to be some new arrangement for a large reserve fund right here on home soil, or we'll be kept in hot water half the time. I don't believe in having the hands that work in one place, and the purse that holds their pay in another; it gets too ticklish at such times when the market drops and a plank or two at the bottom falls out."