“Yes, an’ you atop o’ him!” shouted the infuriated man. “I’ve done it before.”
“Respect the meeting, if you have no regard for the Chair,” said Gibbons, calmly.
“You talk to us as if we were a parcel of fools,” cried a man in front. Braunt, like a baited bull, not knowing in which direction to rush, turned his eyes, blazing with rage, upon the last speaker. He shook his clenched fist and bared arm at the audience.
“What else are you?” he roared, at the top of his voice. “A parcel o’ dommed fools, all o’ ye. Led by the nose by a still bigger fool than any o’ ye. Yes; a set o’ chattering idiots, that’s what ye are, with not enough brains among the lot o’ ye to turn a grindstone. I know ye, a beer-sodden gang, with just enough sense to see that your pint mug’s full.”
By this time those in the hall were in a state of exasperation bordering on frenzy. A small door, to the right of the stage, connecting with an alley, had been opened, and a number of the more timid, seeing a storm impending, had quietly slipped out. The meeting was now a seething mob, crying for the blood of the man who stood there defying them and heaping contumely upon it.
Gibbons, his lips pale but firm, took a step forward. “We have had enough of this,” he said. “Get off the platform!”
Braunt turned as if on a pivot, and rushed at the secretary. The latter stepped nimbly back, and one of his supporters, with a running jump and hop, planted his boot squarely in Braunt’s stomach. The impetus was so great, and the assault so sudden and unexpected, that Braunt, powerful as he was, doubled up like a two-foot rule, and fell backward from the platform to the floor. Instantly a dozen men pounced upon him, and hustled him, in spite of his striking out right and left, through the open door into the alley. The door was closed and bolted in the twinkling of an eye—Braunt outside and his assailants within. It was all so neatly and so quickly done, that the police, who had been on the alert for some time, only reached the spot when the door was bolted. The crowd, with but the vaguest general notion of what had happened, beyond the sudden backward collapse of Braunt, raised a wild cheer for which Gibbons was thankful. He did not wish them to know that Braunt had been taken in hand by the police outside, and he had been very anxious, if an arrest were inevitable, that it should not take place in the hall, for then even Braunt’s violent tirade would not have prevented universal sympathy turning towards him. While the cheer was ringing up to the roof, Gibbons had heard a terrific blow delivered against the door, a blow that nearly burst in the bolt and made the faces of those standing near turn pale. Another crashing hit shattered the panel and gave a glimpse for one moment of bleeding knuckles. Then there was an indication of a short sharp struggle in the alley, and all was quiet save the reverberating echo of the cheer.
Gibbons strode to the front of the platform, and held up his hand for silence.
“I am very sorry,” he said, “that the last speaker made some remarks which ought not to have been made, but let us all remember that hard words break no bones. However, there has been enough talk for one night, and it is time to proceed to business. Gentlemen, you have heard the report of the committee—what is your pleasure?”
“I move,” said a man, rising in the middle of the hall, “that we go on strike.”