Half a Rogue - Harold MacGrath (phonics books TXT) 📗

said Donnelly tersely.

"With Republican judges on the benches?" replied McQuade ironically.

"And you can't enjoin private property," added Morrissy.

"I'll send for Bennington," Donnelly volunteered. "Perhaps I can talk him into reason."

"It's up to you to block this move somehow," said McQuade. "It means the labor vote. And we've got to have that."

"I'll do the best I can. I can stop his permit to tear down the building, if he really intends to do that."

"It will be a good day's work for you."

"I'll act this very afternoon."

Once outside the mayor's office, McQuade turned to Morrissy.

"Where's that receipt you promised on oath?"

"Haven't you got it?" asked Morrissy, feigning surprise.

"No, and I doubt you sent it. But I want it at once, and no more monkeying."

"Well, I sent it. I mailed it to your office. You've overlooked it."

"Come over to my office now and make it out," McQuade insisted.

"You've got plenty of grips on me without that," protested Morrissy reproachfully.

"But I want this one, and I'm going to have it."

"I'll go to your office. Will Donnelly be game?"

"He will if he knows which side his bread is buttered on," contemptuously.

The two went up to McQuade's office. It was deserted.

"The girl's gone this afternoon," said McQuade, "but I can handle the typewriter myself."

"All I've got to say is that I mailed you a receipt. What do you want it for?" with a final protest.

"I've got an idea in my head, Morrissy. I want that receipt. Some day you may take it into your head to testify that I offered you a thousand to bring on the strike at Bennington's. That would put me in and let you out, because I can't prove that I gave the cash to you. Business is business."

"Hell! Any one would think, to hear you talk, that I had threatened to betray."

"Every man to his own skin," replied McQuade philosophically. He then sat down before the typewriter. There were two blank sheets in the roller, with a carbon between. The girl had left her machine all ready for the morrow's work. McQuade picked out his sentence laboriously.

"There, sign that."

The paper read:

"I, James Morrissy, the undersigned, do hereby declare that I have received $1,000, in two sums of $500 each, from Daniel McQuade, these sums being payment agreed upon for my bringing about the strike at the Bennington shops."


Morrissy looked at the boss incredulously.

"I say, Mac, have you gone crazy?" he cried. "Do you want evidence like this lying around in your safe? It's the penitentiary for both of us if any one finds that."

"I know what I am doing," McQuade responded quietly, as indeed he did.

"But look; you've got the strike and I've got the cash; that makes us quits."

"Sign it," was all McQuade replied to this argument.

"All right. What's bad for me is bad for you," and without further ado Morrissy affixed his fist to the sheet.

"Here's the duplicate for you."

Morrissy lighted a match and set fire to the sheet; he stamped on the ashes with grim satisfaction.

"Not for mine," with a laugh. "You're welcome to yours."

McQuade folded his deliberately and put it away in the safe. The sheet of carbon paper he crumpled into a ball and tossed into the waste- basket. We all commit blunders at one time or another, and McQuade had just committed his.

"That's all, Morrissy. I think I can trust you fully. I mean no harm, boy; 'tis only self-preservation."

"Oh, so long as your name's on it there's no kick coming from me; only I never saw you do such a fool thing before. Anything else to-day?"

"No. You might keep tab on that fool Bolles. He's been drunk ever since he came back from New York. And he doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut."

"I'll keep an eye on him."

"He's the only man we have who can handle the dagos. I'll see you up at Dutch Hall to-night. Donnelly is making a speech there, and we'll open a few kegs of beer for the boys."

When Morrissy was gone McQuade laughed softly and went to the safe again. He proceeded to do to his receipt exactly what Morrissy had done to his-burn it. So long as Morrissy believed that McQuade held his signature, so long might Morrissy be trusted. It was only an idea, but it proved that the boss knew his lieutenants tolerably well.

"The blackleg would sell the tomb off his father's grave," he mused, brushing the ashes from his clothes.

Let Bennington rip up his shops; all the better for Donnelly's chances of reelection. The laboring party would be sure to desert Warrington's standard, since he was a personal and intimate friend of Bennington the oppressor. He laughed again sinisterly. Presently he would have them all by the throats. He would watch them squirm, too. This young fool Warrington; he was the first real obstacle he (McQuade) had encountered in his checkered career. Threats could not move him. He had believed at the start that he could scare him away from the convention; but the fool wouldn't be scared. And his damned dog!

"He'll never reach the City Hall, not while I live, damn his impudence! That woman, though, is no fool. She's kept her mouth shut. They don't always do that. Well, I can write more than receipts on the machine. I'll ruin them both if I can. Ordered me out of the house, and I honestly liked the woman! But I'll square accounts presently."

Meanwhile Donnelly set the wires humming. He finally got Bennington at the shops.

"This is Mr. Bennington. Who is it and what is wanted?"

"This is the mayor talking."

"Oh! Well, what is it, Mr. Donnelly?"

"I must see you at once in my office. This is an urgent request. I can't explain the matter over the wire. But you'll do yourself and me a great favor if you'll come into town at once."

"Very important?"

"Extremely so."

"I shall be there at five o'clock."

"Thanks. I shall await you." Donnelly hung up the receiver, very well satisfied.

Bennington understood. Politics was going to take a hand in the game. After all, it was best to take the bull by the horns at once and have it over with. He knew how well he had fortified himself against any political machinery. So, promptly at a quarter to five, he departed, leaving explicit orders with his subordinates. The strikers moved aside for him, muttering and grumbling, but they made no effort to impede his progress. There were groans and catcalls, but that was all. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, but presented his back to them fearlessly. Chittenden, upon Bennington's advice, had gone to New York. The strikers would have used him roughly, could they have laid hands on him.

Arriving in town, Bennington went at once to the City Hall and straight to the mayor's private office.

"Well, Mr. Donnelly?" he began, his hat on his handsome head and his cane behind his back, neither offensive nor defensive.

Donnelly closed the door leading to the clerk's office and came back to his desk. He waved his hand toward a chair. If he could bend this young hot-head, it would be a victory worth while, politically.

"In the first place, Mr. Bennington, aren't you going a little too hard on the men?"

"That was their lookout; they had every chance to think the matter over, to examine all sides of the question."

"You went personally to the governor for deputy police. Why didn't you come to me?"

"The governor is a personal friend of mine."

"I don't believe that I have been found lacking in justice," said Donnelly thoughtfully.

"I can't say that you have. But I was in a hurry, and could not wait for the local machinery to move."

"You have placed armed men in your shops without a justifiable cause."

"The men are mechanics, sworn in for their own self-protection."

Donnelly saw that he was making no impression.

"These men, then, are to tear down your shops?" not without admiration.

"Well, they are there to dismantle it."

"That building must not go down, Mr. Bennington."

"'Must not'? Do I understand you to say 'must not'?"

"Those words exactly."

"It is private property, Mr. Donnelly; it was not organized under corporation laws."

"You can not destroy even private property, in a city, without a legal permit."

"I have that."

"And I shall call a special meeting of the Common Council to rescind your permit."

"Do so. I shall tear it down, nevertheless. I shall do what I please with what is my own." Bennington balanced on his heels.

"The law is there."

"I shall break it, if need says must," urbanely.

Donnelly surveyed the end of his dead cigar.

"The men will become violent."

"Their violence will in no wise hinder me, so long as they confine it to the shops. Even then I shall call upon you for police protection."

"And if I should not give it?"

"Just now I am sure you will. For the mayor of Herculaneum to refuse me my rights would be a nice morsel for the Republican party."

Donnelly passed over this.

"I wish to protect the rights of the workman, just as you wish to protect yours."

"What are the workman's rights?"

Donnelly did not reply.

"Well, I'll reply for you, then. His right is to sell his labor to the highest bidder; his right is to work where he pleases; for what hours he desires; his right is to reject abusive employers and to find those congenial; his right is to produce as little or as much as he thinks best; his right is to think for himself, to act for himself, to live for himself."

"You admit all this, then?" asked Donnelly in astonishment.

"I have never so much as denied a single right that belongs to the workman."

"Then what the devil is all this row about?"

"If the workman has his rights, shall not the employer have his?"

Donnelly mused. He would not be able to do anything with this plain-spoken man.

"But the workman steps beyond. He has no right to dictate to his employer as to what HIS rights shall be. Where there is no amity between capital and labor there is never any justice; one or the other becomes a despot. The workman has his rights, but these end where the other man's rights begin. He shall not say that another man shall not seek work, shall not sell his labor for what he can get; he has no right to forbid another man's choosing freedom; he has no right to say that a manufacturer shall produce only so much."

"Well, I've only to say," said Donnelly, hedging before this clear argument, "I've only to say, if the men become violent, look out for yourself."

"I shall appeal to you for civic or military protection; if you refuse it, to the governor; if politics there interferes, I shall appeal to Washington, where neither your arm nor McQuade's can reach. I understand the causes back of this strike; they are personal, and I'm man enough to look out