You see, some of those fellows got a
notion that there ought to be a union among the working-men to keep up
wages, and dictate to the employers, and Mr. Dryfoos's foreman was the
ringleader in the business. They understood pretty well that as soon as
he found it out that foreman would walk the plank, and so they watched
out till they thought they had Mr. Dryfoos just where they wanted
him--everything on the keen jump, and every man worth his weight in
diamonds--and then they came to him, and--told him to sign a promise to
keep that foreman to the end of the season, or till he was through with
the work on the Dryfoos and Hendry Addition, under penalty of having them
all knock off. Mr. Dryfoos smelled a mouse, but he couldn't tell where
the mouse was; he saw that they did have him, and he signed, of course.
There wasn't anything really against the fellow, anyway; he was a
first-rate man, and he did his duty every time; only he'd got some of
those ideas into his head, and they turned it. Mr. Dryfoos signed, and
then he laid low."
March saw Lindau listening with a mounting intensity, and heard him
murmur in German, "Shameful! shameful!"
Fulkerson went on: "Well, it wasn't long before they began to show their
hand, but Mr.
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