“Then that settles it. Although you have come here but recently, Strong, we all consider you a friend and count you as one of ourselves. You’ll stand by the bunch, won’t you?” Carmachel scrutinized Peter sharply.
“Yes, I will. But you don’t understand the circumstances or you would never urge me to——”
Carmachel interrupted him.
“I guess I understand the circumstances better than you think,” returned he, dryly. “Mr. Coddington got you your place, I’ve heard. Naturally you feel under obligations to him for his kindness. That’s all very well. But has he ever been near you since he put you into the tannery? No! He sits in his office and opens his mail and you are just a boy in the works. Isn’t that so? What’s to hinder you from going respectfully to him with the rest of us and calling to his attention something which seems to us an injustice? You said yourself it was the best plan. You pleaded with us to do it.”
“I know.”
“Then why won’t you go yourself? You’re not a coward, Strong, nor, unless I greatly mistake, are you the sort of chap who would point out to others a path he wouldn’t dare follow himself.”
“I’ll go!” cried Peter suddenly. “I’ll go, but I will not do any speaking.”
“Nobody wants you to speak,” growled an Italian who had been standing near and who had overheard the conversation. “Bryant, Carmachel, and the older men will do the speaking. It’s their place.”
So it was agreed.
Events shaped themselves rapidly. Within an hour Mr. Coddington, seated in his perfectly appointed office, received word that a deputation of his men respectfully requested an interview with him that afternoon.