"Hallo, now!—and what do you call this?" Faber asked, as the car came to a standstill and the mob pressed about it. "Is this a dime show, and do we get you?"
Trevelle, a little shaken by the attentions of his neighbours, who had climbed upon the footboard to look at him, declared that they were the "out-of-works."
"Just one of the usual January processions—I expect we shall see a good many before we are through."
"I guess they look ugly, anyway—see that fellow with the lantern jaw and the club? It will want a pretty big baker to stop him if he's hungry!"
"We are stopping him by food—the government must help us."
"And buy Faber's corn?" chimed in Morris, "he's about two or three hundred cargoes to sell—at a price," and he laughed as though it were the finest of jokes. Trevelle, however, was too busy with his neighbour on the footboard to say anything at all. A swarthy ruffian with a ragged crimson tie had grabbed at his watch and chain, and discovered a fifteen shilling enamelled timepiece, which annoyed him.
"A —— fine gentleman, you are—I don't fink!" and he went off, rattling the money-box, which he had dropped for the purpose of this assault.
It was an aggressive procession—long, disorganized, revolting in aspect. Men of all ages had set out upon the long march to Trafalgar Square, where they would demand of the government work or bread. You may see the same any winter; but this winter of surpassing cold had given the wolf's jowl to many who were pleasant-faced without it, and the fire of hunger shone from many eyes. A few girls of brazen mien walked by the ragged coats and occasionally danced a few steps to keep themselves warm. With them went grandfathers and grandsons; old men, whose backs were bent by the labours of distant years; mere lads looking for a row with the "coppers."
"What do those fellows think they will do?" Faber asked of Trevelle. He had seen the same kind of thing in his own country—but there, as he put it, the club of the policeman was more powerful than the brotherhood of man. Trevelle admitted that it was so. He had been three days in New York. Therefore, he knew it must be so.
"If the frost holds, they will loot the shops. They've done it before with an embryo Cabinet Minister to lead them. I tell my journalistic friends that they are going to do a finer thing than they have ever done before—they are going to help the mob to loot Bond Street. We are on the top of a volcano; we have been really, for twenty years. The wonder is that we have never discovered it before."