"Yeh; but—"
Hendrik turned to the man who had interrupted—a short chap advertising a chain of hat-stores and asked, "But what?"
"Nutt'n!" The hatter had once helped about a prize-fighter's training-quarters, hence the quick duck.
"Also, you'll have easy—"
"Easy!" The hatter had spoken prematurely again.
"What?" scowled Hendrik.
"Hours," hastily explained the man.
"We ask only for fair play," pursued the leader.
"Yeh; sure!" murmured Fleming, with the cold enthusiasm of all paid lieutenants of causes.
"And we must make up our minds to play fair with employers, so that employers will play fair with us."
"Like hell they will!" This was from a tall, thin, toothless chap. Reason: Tapeworm and booze. Name: Mulligan. Recreation: Chiropodist's favorite.
"I'll prove it to you," said Hendrik, very earnestly.
"Perhaps to but not by me," muttered Mulligan.
"Union wages will be twenty cents an hour."
"Never get it!" mumbled an old fellow with what they call waiter's foot—flattened arch. "Never!"
"Never," came in chorus from all the others, their voices ringing with conviction.
"I'll have the jobs to give out. I guess I know how much you'll get." The flame of hope lit fourteen pairs of blear eyes. Maybe this boob had the cash and desired to separate himself from it. All primitive people think the fool is touched of God. Hunger makes men primitive.
"I'll fix the wages!" declared Hendrik again. He saw himself feeding these men; therefore he felt he owned them absolutely. It isn't, of course, necessary actually to feed people, or even to promise to feed them, to own them. Nevertheless, his look of possession imposed on these victims of a democracy. They mutely acknowledged a boss.
Instantly perceiving this, a sense of kindly responsibility came upon Hendrik. These were his children. He said, paternally, "We'll now have a beer—on me!"
Fleming, to show his divine right to the place of vice-regent, led the way to a joint on Washington Street.
Hendrik saw, with carefully concealed delight, the sensation caused even in the Syrian-infested streets of the quarter by the sight of a handful of sandwich-men in full regalia. He heard the exclamations that fell from polyglot lips. It was a foretaste of success, the preface of a famous man's biography!
The union drank fifteen beers, slowly—and quickly wiped the day's free lunch from the face of the earth. The huskiest of the three bartenders began to work with one hand, the other being glued to a bung-starter. He felt it had to come.
"I'm boss!" said Hendrik to his children as a preliminary to discussing the by-laws.
"I'm willin'!"
"Same here!"
"Let 'er go, cap!"
"Suits me!"
They were all eager to please him—too eager. It made him ask, disgustedly:
"Don't you fellows care who is boss?"
"Naw! Don't we have to have one, anyhow?"
"Yes. But to have one crammed down your throats—"
"The beer helps the swallowing, boss," said the hatter with conviction—and a fresh hope!
"There doesn't seem to be a man among the whole lot of you," said Hendrik.
A young fellow of about twenty-eight, very pale, wearing steel-rimmed spectacles, spoke back, "If you'd starved for three weeks and two days, and on top of it been kicked and cheated and held up, there wouldn't be a hell of a lot of fight in you, my wise gazabo."
"That's exactly what would make me fight," retorted Hendrik, angrily. "Each of you has a vote; each of you, therefore, has as much to say as to how this country should be run as any millionaire. Don't you know what to do with your vote?"
"You're lucky to get a quarter and two nights' lodging nowadays," said the old man with waiter's foot. "The time we elected Gilroy I made fifteen bones and was soused for a mont'. Shorty McFadden made thirty-five dollars—"
"Any of you Republicans?"
"No!" came in a great and indignant chorus.
"I used to be!" defiantly asserted the young man with the spectacles and the pale face and the beaten look.
"And now?"
"Just a lame duck, I guess."
"Too much rumatism," suggested a husky voice, and all the others laughed. The depths of degradation are reached when you can laugh at your own degradation.
"Are any of you socialists?" asked Hendrik.
They looked at him doubtfully. They wished to please him and would have answered accordingly if they had known what he wished to get from them. What they wished to get from him, in the way of speech, was another invitation to tank up. But when in doubt, all men deny. It is good police-court practice. Three veterans, therefore, tentatively said:
"No!"
Hendrik was disappointed, but did not show it. He asked, "Are any of you Christians?"
The crowd fell back.
"Is there one man among you who believes in God?"
They stared at one another in the consternation of utter hopelessness. Mulligan was the first to break the painful silence. He said, with a sad triumph:
"I knew it. Stung again! They'll do anything to get you to listen. We fell for it like boobs."
"What is that?" said Hendrik, sharply.
"I was sayin'," replied Mulligan, grateful that he was one schooner ahead, anyhow, "that I can listen to a good brother like you by the hour when I ain't thirsty. The dryness in my throat affects my hearin'. If you blow again I'll believe in miracles. How could I help it?"
Fourteen pairs of eyes turned hopefully toward the wonder-worker. But he said in the habitual tone of all born leaders:
"You—bums, get around! I'm going to lick hell out of Mulligan. And after that, to show I'm boss, I'll blow again. But first the licking."
Hendrik gave his hat to Fleming to hold and began to turn up his sleeves. But Mulligan hastily said, "I'm converted, boss!" and actually looked pious. How he did it, nobody could tell, for he was not a Methodist by birth or education.
"Mulligan, the union wages will be forty schooners a day." Hendrik said, sternly. Again it was genius—that is, to talk so that men will understand you.
"Kill the scabs!" shrieked Mulligan, and there was murder in his eyes.
Hendrik Rutgers put his right foot firmly on the second rung of the ladder. He did it by spending seventy-five cents for the second time. Fifteen beers.
"Everybody," he said, threateningly, "wait until the schooners are on the bar!" thereby disappointing those who had hoped to ring in an extra glass during the excitement. But all that Hendrik desired was to inculcate salutary notions of discipline and obedience under circumstances that try men's souls. He yelled:
"Damn you, step back! All of you! Back!"
They fell back.
The quivering line, now two feet from the beer, did not look at the glasses full of cheer, but at the eyes full of lickings. They gazed at him, open-mouthed; they gazed and kept on gazing, two feet from the bar—the length of the arm from the beer!
Not obey? After that? There is no doubt of it; they are born!
"To