Beadle's Dime Library No. 412 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

‘22 ~ can’t leave. I’m pledged to the boys to stand by them,” Mr. Van Slack shrugged his shoulders. ‘**I see I was mistaken in you. I took youfor -a sensible man, Locke. Don’t you see you’re getting eighteen hundred dollars cash? y,a man of your ability could go to Ohio, where the ~wages are higher than here, and set up for him- self in a small way. That’s how workmen ele- “vate themselves, Begin to employ other men, sand save the difference in wages. Look here, Tl tell you what Ill do with you. The mort- gage is seven hundred dollars, isn’t it? Yes. ell, 1f you'll g° home and get your wife, bring her here and sign to-day, Ill give you two thousand cash for all om have on the place, and -get you a ticket for Cleveland by the six o’clock train to-night, How’s that?” “It’s a very good offer,” returned Larry, with -ashaking voice. “If it wasn’t for the strike I’d do it in a minute. But I can’t, sir; indeed I can’t. It wouldn’t be honorable, till the strike’s -over. Ill agree to go then, as soon as you like,” *“Confound it, man, can’t you see?” broke in “the lawyer, pettishly. ‘‘Can’t you see what’s “the matter? Don’t bea blind fool, Locke. Two hee thousand cash to carry off will keep your family eH 23 for years.” q *“And don’t yow see,” cried Larry, angrily, _ “that I wouldn’t sell myself for twenty thou- ssand cash? I’m District Master Workman, and ' . J’m bound to the boys. You've offered twenty- “five hundred cash, and I'll take it, but I won’t deave Holesburg till the strike’s ended one way or the other. That’s plain, isn’t it?” For a moment the lawyer was nonplused. | He had expected to find in Larry a labor agita- | “ter working for notoriety and willing to sell out a to the highest bidder. Instead of this he had como up against an 4 honest man, and Mr. Van Slack was not used to dealing with honest men. BBS ar In fact, ho hardly believed in their existence, sand came to the hasty conclusion that Larry ~~ must be playing off virtue to enhance the mag- nitude of his price. een He watched the workman furtively, for near _ . <@& minute, and then said slowly: ay et: “Till the strike’s ended, one way or the other? Ce), an, yes, exactly. Well, now you're beginning to talk sense, Locke. You've a good deal of in- fluence with these fellows, with your position. “What will yon take to advise them to go back ~ tra five hundred to you.” | He spoke slowly and cautiously, watching his | man, and felt rejoiced as he looked. Lee Larry’s face wore a smile, and he asked: Bie. “Phen am I to understand that all this is to A # me to end the strike and fill my own pockets? (Xs that itm ia “Why, of course,” answered Van Slack, with : ’ a * “er a io as: leaped up, his face | Gooking like that of a demon, and pounced on she lawyer like a cat on a mouse. With the _-—- «ehuteh of a vise he seized him by both shoulders sand began to shake him so that Van Slack’s ——s #teeth chattered. ~~ And all the while he shook, his face grew ex “more and more savage, while he growled: a ae **Buy me, will you, curse you? D’ye see any _. traitor in me, curse ye? I've a mind to choke _ *the llfe out of ye now, ye skunk!” For a moment Van Slack struggled, for he was no coward, and his face crimsoned with \gange;r. ken, when he found that he had no more __ ghance than a baby in the hands of the Hercu- Jean , his color began to leave him, and he _. -wilted under the fierce glare of his enemy’s eyes |. and tried to beg for mercy. ~~ As for Larry, he shook and shook until he _—s *irad sated his first. feeling of rage, and then “flung the lawyer down on the floor with a bang, «end shook his finger at him, saying: -—s **- You made a mistake that time, mister. You : cere “take darned good care how you come across me ae for I swear [ think Ill kill you some | e. Offer me money to turn traitor, would ~ye? That shows what your side thinks of; and, mark my words, this strike’s going to end the right way; not the wrong one. Good-iay to And Larry strode out of the room and down to the street, where he very nearly tumbled --—- over Snoopey, who was sitting on the steps . - waiting for him. The sight of the tramp angered him, so that | he said, angrily: Rie Get out of my way, if you don’t want to get _. _He looked so savage that Snoopey shrunk out of the way in short order, and went off down the street toward the meeting-room of the Knights, into which he went to find the men _ __--gitting gloomily round the room, waiting for ’ wii ae ‘ o 7 y @ ? 4 oe a sly grin. ‘‘ You're a fool if you don’t doit, pace: 4! IMfr. ae Workingmen! Bah! they’re all a ___ He got no further. ~ . Larry Locke suddenl — . >} an, yes? m. ““ We've b’en a-waitin’ ever so long,” said one, “Nae y. ‘* Wecan’t get to work without you, -—— .and_you know it.” _ , . They all looked and dis to find + fault, but Larry affected not to notice anything * ; he + & a . - ‘4s * Re to their work again? It might be worth an ex- j. ~*~ a! a? ? i. ’ Larry Locke, the Man of Iron. —— ee tie Se --— till he had ordered the doors closed and begun business at the meeting. As soon as the routine work was over, he rapped for silence and made them a speech, in which he gave them the news he had received from Paul that morning, and a short history of the attempt of the lawyer to bribe him, con- cluding by saying: ‘* Now, brothers, you see what the matter is. It has been a long, hard struggle, but we’re go- ing to win. Skinner is the only man who's ob- stinate, and he’ll have to give way atlast. He sees it, and he’s willing to pay for my absence. Now then, how many men here are in favor of sticking out?” The answer was unanimous, but gloomy, and one man expressed the feelings of a good many when he said: ** We'll stick her out; but we can’t last very much longer, If they don’t give in soon, we'll have to, and we might as well die one way as the other, If we could get away to Ohio we'd do it; but we ain’t got no money left to go there with.’ The deliberations of the Knights were here in- terrupted by a knock at the outer door, and the doorkeeper announced, after a short conversa- tion through the wicket, that a message had come from the Employers’ Union, and that ad- mission was asked. A. buzz of excitement went round the room, and Larry ordered that the messenger be ad- mitted at once. The workmen settled in their seats and looked as stiff and dignified as possible, when into the meeting-room came no less a person than Tom Trainor, whom most of them knew from the time he had been a boy in the Skinner works. Tom looked round him rather sheepishly, and when he saw Larry in the master’s chair, he looked decidedly uncomfortable, but he stiff- aes up as well as he could, till Larry asked im: ‘* Whence come you, and what have you to say, to the brethren of the Order?” om swallowed once or twice in a nervous manner before he answered: “I’ve come from the Manufacturers’ Union, to propose a compromise.” ‘** On what basis?” asked Larry, coldly. Tom held out a letter. ‘Here itis, Mind, I ain’t responsible fdr it, so don’t fo to gittin’ mad with me,” Larry took the letter, saying: ‘You can retire. We'll send an answer. Your Union will remain in session how long?” * They'd said they’d keep open till you sent an answer,” replied Tom, ‘if you don’t keep ’em more than half an hour after I come back.” “They shall have an answer within that time,” responded Larry, and then Tom was shown out of the room and took his departure, while the secretary read out the letter from the Union. It turned out to be a proposition for a com- promise on the basis of half-way between the old and the new scale, and on its acceptance or rejection a fierce strnggle sprung up among the workmen. Many were sorely tempted to take it, m their poverty and misery, as better than keeping on earning nothing; while others insisted that the offer showed the masters were yielding, and that; 1f the men held out another day would secure a complete victory. Larry Locke saw that the proposition to ac- cept was likely to carry most votes, and he ‘beckoned to one of his trusted lieutenants in the red: crowd, to whom he whis to-morrow. This is ** Move to postpone it the crisis of the strike.” His follower, a sharp fellow, took the hint, went back to his place, and presently asked per- mission to address the chair. Then he said that, as the message from the bosses was a surprise, and an important thing, he, for one, wanted a little time to think over it, and didn’t want to act hastily. Therefore he moved to lay it over till next day, and send word to the bosses to that effect. x The idea seemed to take well, and was put toa vote almost immediately, when it was carried without trouble, and Larry Locke, with two others were appointed asa committee to take the decision to the bosses. Then the meeting broke up, the men looking decidedly pee than when they came in the atone while Larry with Jim Maguire and Steve Sutton, with him, took their way to the great mill of Kelly & Barr, where the manufacturers were vee hig pein ery ‘was Ey Oo surprise the whole was emp and deserted, save for a watoleiit insids the gato, who came when they shouted to him, and Id them: : ‘** Nobody ain’t had no meetin’ here to-day. The boss has left the Union. They’re over at the Berkely Hotel, I reekon.” The Berkely Hotel was a well known place, and to that the committee proceeded, but as they went, Maguire and Sutton discussed excitedly the news that Kelly & Barr had left the Union. “* They must have done it, or he wouldn’t have known it,” remarked Larry, thoughtfully. ‘It has scared the rest, and they’re tering to beat é ** We , 3 » f aa ee a Ps i U. yt ae > : SE —- ~ ey who had been appointed to go ———. — us before Kelly beats them. Here’s the place, boys.” They went into the hotel, which they found to be thronged with well-dressed people, for it was a commercial hotel, and the drummers were out in force. They heard that the Ironmasters’ Union met in room 17 and went up one flight to a largo corridor, jammed with men talking together, amid whom they seemed to be lost. ‘It’s a political convention,” said a gentle- | man, of whom Larry inquired the cause of the | crowd. ‘ Look out for your pockets,” he added. ‘* There’s a pretty rough crowd here.” At the same moment Larry found that a crowd of men were pushing in on him with tre- mendous force. CHAPTER XXXIV, LARRY’S DOUBLE-BANKING, Yrs. There was no doubting the fact that the crowd was very dense and composed of strong men, as far as concerned that part near Larry and his friends. In their plain working costume they were so different from the people round them that they had been “‘ spotted” as soon as they first entered the corridor: and the politicians and “strikers ” were hustling them, on purpose to annoy and confuse them. roe and his friends were too much used to rough horse-play to mind this, and they hustled back, swaying to and fro in the crowd, and tak- ing it good-naturedly, till cox came to the door of Room 17, which they found to be wide open, while, inside, stoed a big man with a cigar in his mouth, by a table strewed with pers, There was something familiar in the face of this man to Larry; but he could not tell where he had seen him before. He was tall, broad-shouldered and _ burly, with a clean-shaven chin and cheeks, and a close-clipped grigzled mustache, while his hair was cut as close as a convict’s. Round the room, lounging on chairs, were some other men who all seemed to be dressed in new clothes, and to have been recently bar- bered, none of whom did Larry recognize. He and his friends went in, and Larry said: ‘* Is this the Bosses’ Union?” The big man turned to him, and surveyed him from head to foot with a dubious air. ‘Yes it is,” he said. ‘‘I’m the secretary, Who are you, and what do you want?” ‘*I'm Larry Locke, District Master Work- man,” said Larry, quietly. ‘* You sent us a let- ter. ‘Yes. Well, are you going to come down from your high horse?’ asked the big man, gruffly. ‘‘ We made the offer. Do you take it?” ‘**No,” answered Larry, ‘‘ we wamt more time to think over it. We'll give you an answer to- morrow.” The big man looked him over again. “‘Hum! Ye will, will ye? Well, itll be too late then. It ain't open. The bosees have eed to shut the works and sell out, if you don’t come down to them.” ‘They can shut up and fo to blazes,” retorted Larry, with some heat. ‘ They’ve made a propo- sition and we shall hold them to it,” The big man sneered at him. “Ye don’t say. You’re a healthy pill to hold any one to anything, you are. Get out of this room, or you'll get put out, darned quick.” Larry’s eyes flashed. “Pm going out, sir,” He said, sternly; ‘‘ but don’t you go to talking of putting me out, or it will be fhe worse for you.” ‘“*TIt will, will it?’ cried the big man, and as he spoke he snatched up from the table a heavy iron- wood ruler and looked round him. “That’s your man, boys,” he cried. ‘ Slug him!” The men in new clothes rouad the room jumped up and came piling on the three work- men, without a word, For one instant there wasa fierce, silent strug- gle, Larry strfkibg out and butting with his ead, laying man after man prostrate, but the odds were too great. In the midst of the melee the big man brought down the ruler on Larry with crushing force, while a battery of blows from brass knuckles rained on the back of his head, and Larry Locke, the Man of Iron, taken by surprise, twelve to one, dropped senseless on the floor, just as the politicians and strikers of the big convention outside came crowding in to part the combat- ants and entered unawares into a regular free fight, which swayed to and fro from the room to the corridor and back again, while shouts and cries made a Babel of the Berkely Hotel, to the dismay of the guests. Out in the corridor, near the stairs, stood Tom Trainor and Marcellus Skinner, listening, since the workmen first went in, and Marcellus observed to his hopeful son: “It’s worked to a charm,Tom. They’ve gone in. Didn’t any of ’em suspect anything?” ** Not a thing,” returned Tom, with a grin. **Locke he looked at the paper and saw the reg’lar heading, and I reckon they took it for a genooine message, Oh, he’s sucked in, this time, for sure.” Marcellus, in the midst of a crowd, watched €omicbooks. " i Le. he Feo. 1 ia” » »*4 : > 4