"Charles," she urged, "if only you'll have a little patience, you'll find that they can be of service—of great service!"
Still, Hamilton ignored his wife utterly, while he addressed the three women impersonally.
"I did not know that the men were in the habit of using their wives in a strike like this." His manner was designedly offensive.
Again, it was Sadie who was first to retort, which she did with a manner that aped his own insolence.
"Well, if Mrs. Hamilton can butt into it, it's a cinch we can!"
The man's face darkened with wrath. His voice, when he spoke, sounded dangerously low and controlled.
"Mrs. Hamilton has nothing whatever to do with my business affairs," he declared, explicitly. "She has nothing whatever to do with this strike. If you women come from the men, go back and tell them that I'm not dealing with women—neither now nor in the future. If they want anything at any time, let them come for it themselves."
"Can you beat it?" Sadie demanded wonderingly, of the universe at large.
But the Irishwoman took it on herself to answer, with an explicitness equal to Hamilton's own:
"Faith, and we didn't come to see you, as you know very well, I'm thinking. If it wasn't for Mrs. Hamilton—God bless her—we wouldn't be here at all.... And 'tis sorry I am we are."