XV
"Since we are in for it," said Mr. Slocum the next morning, "putthe case to them squarely."
Mr. Slocum's vertebrae had stiffened over night.
"Leave that to me, sir," Richard replied. "I have been shaping outin my mind a little speech which I flatter myself will cover thepoints. They have brought this thing upon themselves, and we areabout to have the clearest of understandings. I never saw the menquieter."
"I don't altogether admire that. It looks as if they hadn't anydoubt as to the issue."
"The clearest-headed have no doubt; they know as well as you and Ido the flimsiness of those resolutions. But the thick heads are in afog. Every man naturally likes his pay increased; if a simple fellowis told five or six hundred times that his wages ought to be raised,the idea is so agreeable and insidious that by and by he begins tobelieve himself grossly underpaid, though he may be getting twicewhat he is worth. He doesn't reason about it; that's the last thinghe'll do for you. In this mood he lets himself be flown away by thebreath of some loud-mouthed demagogue, who has no interest in thematter beyond hearing his own talk and passing round the hat afterthe meeting is over. That is what has happened to our folks below.But they _are_ behaving handsomely."
"Yes, and I don't like it."
Since seven o'clock the most unimpeachable decorum had reigned inthe workshops. It was now nine, and this brief dialogue had occurredbetween Mr. Slocum and Richard on the veranda, just as the latter wason the point of descending into the yard to have his talk with themen.
The grating lisp of the wet saws eating their way into the marbleboulder, and the irregular quick taps of the seventy or eightymallets were not suspended as Richard took his stand beside a tallfunereal urn at the head of the principal workshop. After a second'sfaltering he rapped smartly on the lip of the urn with the key ofhis studio-door.
Instantly every arm appeared paralyzed, and the men stoodmotionless, with the tools in their hands.
Richard began in a clear but not loud voice, though it seemed toring on the sudden silence:--
"Mr. Slocum has asked me to say a few words to you, this morning,about those resolutions, and one or two other matters that haveoccurred to him in this connection. I am no speech-maker; I neverlearned that trade"--
"Never learned any trade," muttered Durgin, inaudibly.
--"but I think I can manage some plain, honest talk, forstraight-forward men."
Richard's exordium was listened to with painful attention.
Several voices cried, "Good for Slocum!" "Where's Slocum?" "Whydon't Slocum speak for himself?" cried one voice.
"It is Mr. Slocum's habit," answered Richard, "to give hisdirections to me, I give them to the foremen, and the foremen to theshops. Mr. Slocum follows that custom on this occasion. With regardto the new scale of wages which the Association has submitted to him,the Proprietor refuses to accept it, or any modification of it."
A low murmur ran through the workshops.
"What's a modificashun, sir?" asked Jemmy Willson, steppingforward, and scratching his left ear diffidently.
"A modification," replied Richard, considerably embarrassed togive an instant definition, "is a--a"--
"A splitting of the difference, by--!" shouted somebody in thethird shop.
"Thank you," said Richard, glancing in the direction of hisimpromptu Webster's Unabridged. "Mr. Slocum does not propose to splitthe difference. The wages in every department are to be just whatthey are,--neither more nor less. If anybody wishes to make aremark," he added, observing a restlessness in several of the men, "Ibeg he will hold on until I get through. I shall not detain you muchlonger, as the parson says before he has reached the middle of hissermon.
The words were not clearly off Richard's lips when the foreman ofthe shop in which he was speaking picked up a couple of small drills,and knocked them together with a sharp click. In an instant the menlaid aside their aprons, bundled up their tools, and marched out ofthe shed two by two, in dead silence. That same click was repeatedalmost simultaneously in the second shop, and the same evolution tookplace. Then click, click, click! went the drills, sounding fainterand fainter in the distant departments; and in less than threeminutes there was not a soul left in Slocum's Yard except the Oratorof the Day.
Richard had anticipated some demonstration, either noisy orviolent, perhaps both; but this solemn, orderly desertion dashed him.
He stepped into the middle of the yard, and glancing up beheldMargaret and Mr. Slocum standing on the veranda. Even at thatdistance he could perceive the pallor on one face, and theconsternation written all over the other.
Hanging his head with sadness, Richard crossed the yard, whichgave out mournful echoes to his footfalls, and swung to the largegate, nearly catching old Giles by the heel as he did so. Lookingthrough the slats, he saw Lumley and Peterson hobbling arm in armdown the street,--after more than twenty-five years of kindlytreatment.
"Move number one," said Richard, lifting the heavy cross-pieceinto its place and fastening it with a wooden pin. "Now I must go andprop up Mr. Slocum."