He was tactless enough to say to a furious orator:
“Ah, what’s it to you? The more ships the Germans sink the more you got to build and the more they’ll have to pay you. If Davidge goes broke, so much the better. The sooner we bust these capitalists the sooner the workin’-man gets his rights.”
The orator retorted: “This is war-times. We got to make ships to win the war.”
Jake laughed. “Whose war is it? The capitalists’. You’re fightin’ for Morgan and Rockefeller to save their investments and to help ’em to grind you into the dirt. England and France and America are all land-grabbers. They’re no better ’n Germany.”
The workers wanted a scapegoat, and Jake unwittingly volunteered. They welcomed him with a bloodthirsty roar. They called him vigorous shipyard names and struck at him. He backed off. They followed. He made a crucial mistake; he whirled and ran. They ran after him. Some of them threw hammers and bolts. Some of these struck him as he fled. Workmen ahead of him were roused by the noise and headed him off.
He darted through an opening in the side of the Mamise. The crowd followed him, chased him out on an upper deck.
“Throw him overboard! Kill him!” they shouted.
He took refuge behind Sutton the riveter, whose gun had made such noise that he had heard none of the clamor. Seeing Jake’s white face and the mark of a thrown monkey-wrench 205 on his brow, Sutton shut off the compressed air and confronted the pursuers. He was naked to the waist, and he had no weapon, but he held them at bay while he demanded:
“What’s the big idea? What you playin’? Puss in a corner? How many of yous guys does it take to lick this one gink?”
A burly patriot, who forgot that his name and his accent were Teutonic, roared: