“I will repeat your conversation to Gibbons and the committee.”
“Ah, that’s not what you said. Neither Gibbons nor the committee were mentioned in our talk this morning.”
“As near as I can recollect, I said I would use what information I received in the interests of the men.”
“Quite so. I am as anxious about the men’s welfare as you are, and what I have to say to you must reach them. If you tell it to Gibbons and the committee, and if they do not pass it on to the men, as they will take precious good care not to do, I shall then learn whether you are a man of your word or not. The strikers meet to-night at the Salvation Hall. If Gibbons does not inform them what he will then know, I shall expect you to stand up in your place and add to the enlightenment of the situation. When you were here last I showed you a sheet of paper, at the top of which was written the resources, for the moment, of the Union. The remainder of the sheet was blank, but it is now filled up. It shows the expenditure, week by week, up to the last payment made to those on strike. If you cast your eye over this sheet, you will see that the Union is now bankrupt.”
“If that is all you have to tell me, Mr. Sartwell, it is no news. The men already know they are depending on public subscriptions.”
“And they still believe in Gibbons as a leader?”
“Yes.”
“Very good. Now, I come to what is news—news to you, to Gibbons, and to the men. Most of this money has gone to loafers from the east end of London. I had such unlimited confidence in Gibbons’s foolishness and in the stupidity of the committee, that I have sent through the gates, not workmen like you, but such unfortunate wretches as were out of work and willing to absorb strike pay merely on condition that they would keep their mouths shut. It never seemed to occur to Gibbons that, if I were able to fill up the works with men transported to our river-steps on a steamer, I could either have fed and lodged them here, or taken them back and forth in the same way they came. He gathered them into the Union with a whoop, which was just what I expected him to do, but he never tried to find out whether they were genuine workmen or not.”
“You mean, then, that by a trick you have bankrupted the Union.”
Sartwell shrugged his shoulders.