"Who's your new owner?"
"Never mind, he's a man. Send the gal home or you'll be pulled before twenty-four hours."
"You're runnin' a Sunday-school, ain't you?"
"No, but I'm done workin' for some folks. That's all. So long. Git her out of your house if she's here. Git her out of your house."
He walked down the room, and as he passed a table the big man with the two women accosted him.
"Who's your friend?" he asked with a sneer. It was Wringman, who having finished his labors for the day in proving to famished strikers how much better off they were than formerly, was now refreshing himself in one of his favorite haunts, at his favorite occupation.
Talman stopped and looked at him quietly, then he said: "That man up there"—with his thumb over his shoulder he pointed toward the bar—"that man there has been a friend of mine in the past and he can ask me questions that I don't allow folks like you to ask me. See? I have known a man to git his neck broke by buttin' too hard into other folks' business. See?"
Wringman, with an oath, started to get out of his chair, but his companions held him down, imploring him to be quiet, and the next moment the big bouncer from the bar was standing beside the table, and after a word with him Talman made his way through the crowd and walked out of the door.
The bar-keeper beckoned to his bouncer and the two held a muttered conference at the end of the bar. "He's gittin' too big for his breeches," said the bar-keeper as he turned away. "He'll git back there if he fools with me and pretty quick too."