Chapter 12

"Temple," he said, "how did you ever pick up this wine; and, if you will excuse the question, how did you know it when you got it?"

Temple smiled, evidently pleased with the question. "You've been in Spain, haven't you?"

"Yes," said Farnham.

"You know this is the genuine stuff, then?"

"No doubt of it."

"_How_ do you know?"

"The usual way--by seeing and drinking it at the tables of men who know what they are about."

"Well, I have never been out of the United States, and yet I have learned about wine in just the same way. I commenced in New Orleans among the old Spanish and French Creoles, and have kept it up since, here and there. I can see in five minutes whether a man knows anything about his wine. If he does, I remember every word he says--that is my strong point--head and tongue. I can't remember sermons and speeches, but I can remember every syllable that Sam Ward said one night at your grandfather's ten years ago; and if I have once tasted a good wine, I never forget its fashion of taking hold."

This is an expurgated edition of what he said; his profanity kept up a running accompaniment, like soft and distant rolling thunder.

"I got this wine at the sale of the Marquis of Santa Rita. I heard you speak of him, I don't know how long ago, and the minute I read in the paper that he had turned up his toes, I cabled the consul at Cadiz--you know him, a wild Irishman named Calpin--to go to the sale of his effects and get this wine. He cabled back, 'What shall I pay?' I answered, 'Head your dispatch again: Get means get!' Some men have got no sense. I did not mind the price of the wine, but it riled me to have to pay for the two cables."

He poured out another glass and drank it drop by drop, getting, as he said, "the worth of his money every time."

"Have some more?" he said to Farnham.

"No, thank you."

"Then I'll put it away. No use of giving it to men who would prefer sixty-cent whiskey."

Having done this, he turned again to Farnham, and said, "I told you the Old Boy was to pay. This is how. The labor unions have ordered a general strike; day not fixed; they are holding meetings all over town to-night. I'll know more about it after midnight."

"What will it amount to?" asked Farnham.

"Keen savey?" replied Temple, in his Mississippi River Spanish. "The first thing will be the closing of the mills, and putting anywhere from three thousand to ten thousand men on the streets. Then, if the strike gains the railroad men, we shall be embargoed, ---- boiling, and safety-valve riveted down."

Farnham had no thought of his imperilled interests. He began instantly to conjecture what possibility of danger there might be of a disturbance of public tranquillity, and to wish that the Beldings were out of town.

"How long have you known this?" he asked.

"Only certainly for a few hours. The thing has been talked about more or less for a month, but we have had our own men in the unions and did not believe it would come to an extremity. To-day, however, they brought ugly reports; and I ought to tell you that some of them concern you."

Farnham lifted his eyebrows inquiringly.

"We keep men to loaf with the tramps and sleep in the boozing kens. One of them told me to-day that at the first serious disturbance a lot of bad eggs among the strikers--not the unionists proper, but a lot of loose fish--intend to go through some of the principal houses on Algonquin Avenue, and they mentioned yours as one of them."

"Thank you. I will try to be ready for them," said Farnham. But, cool and tried as was his courage, he could not help remembering, with something like dread, that Mrs. Belding's house was next to his own, and that in case of riot the two might suffer together.

"There is one thing more I wanted to say," Mr. Temple continued, with a slight embarrassment. "If I can be of any service to you, in case of a row, I want to be allowed to help."

"As to that," Farnham said with a laugh, "you have your own house and stables to look after, which will probably be as much as you can manage."

"No," said Temple, earnestly, "that ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"--and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do--that's just what they say--is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll come around and see you if anything more turns up. Now, we'll go and give Phrasy Dallas that glass of champagne."

XII.

A HOLIDAY NOT IN THE CALENDAR.

The next morning while Farnham was at breakfast he received a note from Mr. Temple in these words:

"Strikes will begin to-day, but will not be general. There will be no disturbance, I think. They don't seem very gritty."

After breakfast he walked down to the City Hall. On every street corner he saw little groups of men in rather listless conversation. He met an acquaintance crossing the street.

"Have you heard the news?" The man's face was flushed with pleasure at having something to tell--"The firemen and stokers have all struck, and run their engines into the round-house at Riverley, five miles out. There won't be a train leave or come in for the present."

"Is that all?"

"No, that ain't a start. The Model Oil men have struck, and are all over the North End, shutting up the other shops. They say there won't be a lick of work done in town the rest of the week."

"Except what Satan finds for idle hands," Farnham suggested, and hastened his steps a little to the municipal buildings.

He found the chief of police in his office, suffering from nervousness and a sense of importance. He began by reminding him of the occurrence of the week before in the wood. The chief waited with an absent expression for the story to end, and then said, "My dear sir, I cannot pay any attention to such little matters with anarchy threatening our city. I must protect life and property, sir--life and property."

"Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?"

"I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!"

Farnham saw the case was hopeless, and went to the office of the mayor. That official had assumed an attitude expressive of dignified and dauntless energy. He sat in a chair tilted back on its hind feet; the boots of the municipal authority were on a desk covered with official papers; a long cigar adorned his eloquent lips; a beaver hat shaded his eyes.

He did not change his attitude as Farnham entered. He probably thought it could not be changed for the better.

"Good-morning, Mr. Quinlin."

"Good-morning, sirr, to you." This salutation was uttered through teeth shut as tightly as the integrity of the cigar would permit.

"There is a great deal of talk of possible disturbance to-night, in case the strikes extend. My own neighborhood, I am told, has been directly threatened. I called to ask whether, in case of trouble, I could rely on any assistance from the city authorities, or whether we must all look out for ourselves."

The mayor placed his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and threw his head back so that he could stare at Farnham from below his hat brim. He then said, in a measured voice, as if addressing an assembly: "Sirr! I would have you to know that the working-men of Buffland are not thieves and robbers. In this struggle with capital they have my profound sympathy. I expect their conduct to be that of perr-fect gentlemen. I, at least, will give no orders which may tend to array one class of citizens against another. That is my answer, sirr; I hope it does not disappoint you."

"Not in the least," said Farnham, putting on his hat. "It is precisely what I should have expected of you."

"Thank you, sirr. Call again, sirr."

As Farnham disappeared, the chief magistrate of the city tilted his hat to one side, shut an eye with profoundly humorous significance, and said to the two or three loungers who had been enjoying the scene:

"That is the sort of T-rail I am. That young gentleman voted agin me, on the ground I wasn't high-toned enough."

Farnham walked rapidly to the office of the evening newspaper. He found a man in the counting-room, catching flies and trimming their wings with a large pair of office shears. He said, "Can you put an advertisement for me in your afternoon editions?"

The man laid down his shears, but held on to his fly, and looked at his watch.

"Have you got it ready?"

"No, but I will not be a minute about it."

"Be lively! You haven't got but a minute."

He picked up his scissors and resumed his surgery, while Farnham wrote his advertisement. The man took it, and threw it into a tin box, blew a whistle, and the box disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. A few minutes later the boys were crying the paper in the streets. The advertisement was in these words:

"Veterans, Attention! All able-bodied veterans of the Army of the Potomac, and especially of the Third Army Corps, are requested to meet at seven this evening, at No. -- Public Square."

From the newspaper office Farnham went to a gunsmith's. The dealer was a German and a good sportsman, whom Farnham knew very well, having often shot with him in the marshes west of the city. His name was Leopold Grosshammer. There were two or three men in the place when Farnham entered. He waited until they were gone, and then said:

"Bolty, have you two dozen repeating rifles?"

"Ja wohl! Aber, Herr Gott, was machen Sie denn damit?"

"I don't know why I shouldn't tell you. They think there may be a riot in town, and they tell me at the City Hall that everybody must look out for himself. I am going to try to get up a little company of old soldiers for patrol duty."

"All right, mine captain, and I will be the first freiwilliger. But I don't dink you wants rifles. Revolvers and clubs--like the pleecemen-- dat's de dicket."

"Have you got them?"

"Oh, yes, and the belts thereto. I got der gondract to furnish 'em to de city."

"Then you will send them, wrapped up in bundles, to my office in the Square, and come yourself there at seven."

"Freilich," said Leopold, his white teeth glistening through his yellow beard at the prospect of service.

Farnham spent an hour or two visiting the proprietors of the large establishments affected by the strikes. He found, as a rule, great annoyance and exasperation, but no panic. Mr. Temple said, "The poor ------ fools! I felt sorry for them. They came up here to me this morning,--their committee, they called it,--and told me they hated it, but it was orders! 'Orders from where?' I asked. 'From the chiefs of sections,' they said; and that was all I could get out of them. Some of the best fellows in the works were on the committee. They put 'em there on purpose. The sneaks and lawyers hung back."

"What will they do if the strike should last?" asked Farnham.

"They will be supported for awhile by the other mills. Our men are the only ones that have struck so far. They were told off to make the move, just as they march out a certain regiment to charge a battery. If we give in, then another gang will strike."

"Do you expect to give in?"

"Between us, we want nothing better than ten days' rest. We want to repair our furnaces, and we haven't a ---- thing to do. What I told you this morning holds good. There won't be any riot. The whole thing is solemn fooling, so far."

The next man Farnham saw was in a far less placid frame of mind. It was Jimmy Nelson, the largest grocer in the city. He had a cargo of perishable groceries at the station, and the freight hands would not let them be delivered. "I talked to the rascals," he said. "I asked them what they had against _me_; that they was injuring Trade!" a deity of which Mr. Nelson always spoke with profound respect. "They laughed in my face, sir. They said, 'That's just our racket. We want to squeeze you respectable merchants till you get mad and hang a railroad president or two!' Yes, sir; they said that to me, and five thousand dollars of my stuff rotting in the depot."

"Why don't you go to the mayor?" asked Farnham, though he could not suppress a smile as he said it.

"Yes, I like that!" screamed Jimmy. "You are laughing at me. I suppose the whole town has heard of it. Well, it's a fact. I went and asked that infernal scoundrel what he was going to do. He said his function was to keep the peace, and there wasn't a word in the statutes about North Carliny water-melons. If I live till he gets out of office, I'll lick him."

"Oh, I think you won't do that, Jimmy."

"You think I won't!" said Nelson, absolutely incandescent with the story of his wrongs. "I'll swear by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that I will thrash the hide off him next spring--if I don't forget it."

Farnham went home, mounted his horse, and rode about the city to see what progress the strike was making. There was little disorder visible on the surface of things. The "sections" had evidently not ordered a general cessation of labor; and yet there were curious signs of demoralization, as if the spirit of work was partially disintegrating and giving way to something not precisely lawless, but rather listless. For instance, a crowd of workmen were engaged industriously and, to all appearance, contentedly upon a large school-building in construction. A group of men, not half their number, approached them and ordered them to leave off work. The builders looked at each other and then at their exhorters in a confused fashion for a moment, and ended by obeying the summons in a sullen and indifferent manner. They took off their aprons, went to the hydrant and washed their hands, then put on their coats and went home in silence and shamefacedness, amid the angry remonstrances of the master-builder. A little farther on Farnham saw what seemed like a burlesque of the last performance. Several men were at work in a hole in the street; the tops of their heads were just visible above the surface. A half-grown, ruffianly boy, with a boot-black's box slung over his shoulder, came up and shouted, "You ---- ---- rats, come out of that, or we'll knock the scalps off'n you." The men, without even looking to see the source of the summons, threw down their tools and got out of the hole. The boy had run away; they looked about for a moment, as if bewildered, and then one of them, a gray-headed Irishman, said, "Well, we'd better be a lavin' off, if the rest is," and they all went away.

In this fashion it came about that by nightfall all the squares and public places were thronged with an idle and expectant crowd, not actively mischievous or threatening, but affording a vast mass of inflammable material in case the fire should start in any quarter. They gathered everywhere in dense groups, exchanging rumors and surmises, in which fact and fiction were fantastically mingled.

"The rolling-mills all close to-morrow," said a sallow and hollow-eyed tailor. "That'll let loose twenty thousand men on the town,--big, brawny fellows. I'm glad my wife is in Clairfield."

"All you know about it! Clairfield is twice as bad off as here. The machine shops has all struck there, and the men went through the armory this afternoon. They're camped all along Delaware street, every man with a pair of revolvers and a musket."

"You don't say so!" said the schneider, turning a shade more sallow. "I'd better telegraph my wife to come home."

"I wouldn't hurry," was the impassive response. "You don't know where we'll be to-morrow. They have been drilling all day at Riverley, three thousand of 'em. They'll come in to-morrow, mebbe, and hang all the railroad presidents. That may make trouble."

Through these loitering and talking crowds Farnham made his way in the evening to the office which he kept, on the public square of the town, for the transaction of the affairs of his estate. He had given directions to his clerk to be there, and when he arrived found that some half-dozen men had already assembled in answer to his advertisement. Some of them he knew; one, Nathan Kendall, a powerful young man, originally from the north of Maine, now a machinist in Buffland, had been at one time his orderly in the army. Bolty Grosshammer was there, and in a very short time some twenty men were in the room. Farnham briefly explained to them his intention. "I want you," he said, "to enlist for a few days' service under my orders. I cannot tell whether there will be any work to do or not; but it is likely we shall have a few nights of patrol at least. You will get ten dollars apiece anyhow, and ordinary day's wages besides. If any of you get hurt, I will try to have you taken care of."

All but two agreed to the proposition. These two said "they had families and could not risk their skins. When they saw the advertisement they had thought it was something about pensions, or the county treasurer's office. They thought soldiers ought to have the first chance at good offices." They then grumblingly withdrew.

Farnham kept his men for an hour longer, arranging some details of organization, and then dismissed them for twenty-four hours, feeling assured that there would be no disturbance of public tranquillity that night. "I will meet you here to morrow evening," he said, "and you can get your pistols and sticks and your final orders."

The men went out one by one, Bolty and Kendall waiting for a while after they had gone and going out on the sidewalk with Farnham. They had instinctively appointed themselves a sort of bodyguard to their old commander, and intended to keep him in sight until he got home. As they reached the door, they saw a scuffle going on upon the sidewalk. A well-dressed man was being beaten and kicked by a few rough fellows, and the crowd was looking on with silent interest. Farnham sprang forward and seized one of the assailants by the collar; Bolty pulled away another. The man who had been cuffed turned to Kendall, who was standing by to help where help was needed, and cried, "Take me away somewhere; they will have my life;" an appeal which only excited the jeers of the crowd.

"Kendall, take him into my office," said Farnham, which was done in an instant, Farnham and Bolty following. A rush was made,--not very vicious, however,--and the three men got safely inside with their prize, and bolted the door. A few kicks and blows shook the door, but there was no movement to break it down; and the rescued man, when he found himself in safety, walked up to a mirror there was in the room and looked earnestly at his face. It was a little bruised and bloody, and dirty with mud, but not seriously injured.

He turned to his rescuers with an air more of condescension than gratitude. "Gentlemen, I owe you my thanks, although I should have got the better of those scoundrels in a moment. Can you assist me in identifying them?"

"Oh! it is Mayor Quinlin, I believe," said Farnham, recognizing that functionary more by his voice than by his rumpled visage. "No, I do not know who they were. What was the occasion of this assault?"

"A most cowardly and infamous outrage, sir," said the Mayor. "I was walking along the sidewalk to me home, and I came upon this gang of ruffians at your door. Impatient at being delayed,--for my time is much occupied,--I rebuked them for being in me way. One of them turned to me and insolently inquired, 'Do you own this street, or have you just got a lien on it?' which unendurable insult was greeted with a loud laugh from the other ruffians. I called them by some properly severe name, and raised me cane to force a passage,--and the rest you know. Now, gentlemen, is there anything I can do?"

Farnham did not scruple to strike while the iron was hot. He said: "Yes, there is one thing your Honor may do, not so much for us as for the cause of order and good government, violated to-night in your own person. Knowing the insufficiency of the means at your disposal, a few of us propose to raise a subsidiary night-patrol for the protection of life and property during the present excitement. We would like you to give it your official sanction."

"Do I understand it will be without expense to my--to the city government?" Mr. Quinlin was anxious to make a show of economy in his annual message.

"Entirely," Farnham assured him.

"It is done, sir. Come to-morrow morning and get what papers you want. The sperrit of disorder must be met and put down with a bold and defiant hand. Now, gentlemen, if there is a back door to this establishment, I will use it to make me way home."

Farnham showed him the rear entrance, and saw him walking homeward up the quiet street; and, coming back, found Bolty and Kendall writhing with merriment.

"Well, that beats all," said Kendall. "I guess I'll write home like the fellow did from Iowa to his daddy, 'Come out here quick. Mighty mean men gits office in this country.'"

"Yes," assented Bolty. "Dot burgermeister ish better as a circus mit a drick mule."

"Don't speak disrespectfully of dignitaries," said Farnham. "It's a bad habit in soldiers."

When they went out on the sidewalk the crowd had dispersed. Farnham bade his recruits good night and went up the avenue. They waited until he was a hundred yards away, and then, without a word to each other, followed him at that distance till they saw him enter his own gate.

XIII.

A BUSY SUNDAY FOR THE MATCHINS.

Matters were not going on pleasantly in the Matchin cottage. Maud's success in gaining an eligible position, as it was regarded among her friends, made her at once an object of greater interest than ever; but her temper had not improved with her circumstances, and she showed herself no more accessible than before. Her father, who naturally felt a certain satisfaction at having, as he thought, established her so well, regarded himself as justified in talking to her firmly and seriously respecting her future. He went about it in the only way he knew. "Mattie," he said one evening, when they happened to be alone together, "when are you and Sam going to make a match?"

She lifted her eyes to him, and shot out a look of anger and contempt from under her long lashes that made her father feel very small and old and shabby.

"Never!" she said, quietly.

"Come, come, now," said the old man; "just listen to reason. Sam is a good boy, and with what he makes and what you make----"

"That has nothing to do with it. I won't discuss the matter any further. We have had it all out before. If it is ever mentioned again, Sam or I will leave this house."

"Hoity-toity, Missy! is that the way you take good advice----" but she was gone before he could say another word. Saul walked up and down the room a few moments, taking very short steps, and solacing his mind by muttering to himself: "Well, that's what I get by having a scholar in the family. Learning goes to the head and the heels--makes 'em proud and skittish."

He punctually communicated his failure to Sam, who received the news with a sullen quietness that perplexed still more the puzzled carpenter.

On a Sunday afternoon, a few days later, he received a visit from Mr. Bott, whom he welcomed, with great deference and some awe, as an ambassador from a ghostly world of unknown dignity. They talked in a stiff and embarrassed way for some time about the weather, the prospect of a rise in wages, and other such matters, neither obviously taking any interest in what was being said. Suddenly Bott drew nearer and lowered his voice, though the two were alone in the shop.

"Mr. Matchin," he said, with an uneasy grin, "I have come to see you about your daughter."