“It’s rather rough on you, Stirling,” spoke up a man, “to have it come while you are a nominee.”
Peter smiled, and passed into the room beyond. “Good-morning, General Canfield,” he said. “I have taken the necessary steps to embody my regiment. Are there any further orders?”
“If we need you, we shall put you at the Central Station,” the officer replied; “so, if you do not know the lay of the land, you had better familiarize yourself at once.”
“General Canfield,” said Peter, “my regiment has probably more sympathizers with the strikers than has any other in the city. It could not be put in a worse place.”
“Are you objecting to orders?” said the man, in a sharp decisive voice.
“No,” replied Peter. “I am stating a fact, in hopes that it may prevent trouble.”
The man and Peter looked each other in the eye.
“You have your orders,” said the man, but he didn’t look pleased or proud.
Peter turned and left the room, looking very grave. He look his cab and went to his quarters. He ate a hurried breakfast, and then went down into the streets. They seemed peaceably active as he walked through them. A small boy was calling an extra, but it was in reference to the arrival of a much-expected racing-yacht. There was nothing to show that a great business depression rested with crushing weight on the city, and especially on the poor; that anarchy was lifting its head, and from hungering for bread was coming to hunger for blood and blaze; that capital and labor were preparing to lock arms in a struggle which perhaps meant death and destruction.
The armory door was opened only wide enough to let a man squeeze through, and was guarded by a keeper. Peter passed in, however, without question, and heard a hum of voices which showed that if anarchy was gathering, so too was order. Peter called his officers together, and gave a few orders. Then he turned and whispered for a moment with Dennis.