At the main entrance to the marble works Richard nearly walked
over a man who was coming out, intently mopping his forehead with a
very dirty calico handkerchief. It was an English stone-dresser named
Denyven. Richard did not recognize him at first.
"That you, Denyven!... what has happened!"
"I've 'ad a bit of a scrimmage, sir."
"A scrimmage in the yard, in work hours!"
The man nodded.
"With whom?"
"Torrini, sir,--he's awful bad this day."
"Torrini,--it is always Torrini! It seems odd that one man should
be everlastingly at the bottom of everything wrong. How did it
happen? Give it to me straight, Denyven; I don't want a crooked
story. This thing has got to stop in Slocum's Yard."
"The way of it was this, sir: Torrini wasn't at the shop this
morning. He 'ad a day off."
"I know."
"But about one o'clock, sir, he come in the yard. He 'ad been at
the public 'ouse, sir, and he was hummin'. First he went among the
carvers, talking Hitalian to 'em and making 'em laugh, though he was
in a precious bad humor hisself. By and by he come over to where me
and my mates was, and began chaffin' us, which we didn't mind it,
seeing he was 'eavy in the 'ead. He was as clear as a fog 'orn all
the same. But when he took to banging the tools on the blocks, I
sings out, ''Ands off!' and then he fetched me a clip. I was never
looking for nothing less than that he'd hit me. I was a smiling at
the hinstant."
"He must be drunker than usual."
"Hevidently, sir. I went down between two slabs as soft as you
please. When I got on my pins, I was for choking him a bit, but my
mates hauled us apart. That's the 'ole of it, sir. They'll tell you
the same within."
"Are you hurt, Denyven?"
"Only a bit of a scratch over the heye, sir,--and the nose," and
the man began mopping his brow tenderly. "I'd like to 'ave that
Hitalian for about ten minutes, some day when he's sober, over yonder
on the green."
"I'm afraid he would make the ten minutes seem long to you."
"Well, sir, I'd willingly let him try his 'and."
"How is it, Denyven," said Richard, "that you and sensible
workingmen like you, have permitted such a quarrelsome and
irresponsible fellow to become a leader in the Association? He's
secretary, or something, isn't he?"
"Well, sir, he writes an uncommonly clean fist, and then he's a
born horator. He's up to all the parli'mentary dodges. Must 'ave 'ad
no end of hexperience in them sort of things on the other side."
"No doubt,--and that accounts for him being over here."
"As for horganizing a meeting, sir"--
"I know. Torrini has a great deal of that kind of ability; perhaps
a trifle too much for his own good or anybody else's. There was never
any trouble to speak of among the trades in Stillwater till he and
two or three others came here with foreign grievances. These men get
three times the pay they ever received in their own land, and are
treated like human beings for the first time in their lives. But what
do they do? They squander a quarter of their week's wages at the
tavern,--no rich man could afford to put a fourth of his income into
drink,--and make windy speeches at the Union. I don't say all of
them, but too many of them. The other night, I understand, Torrini
compared Mr. Slocum to Nero,--Mr. Slocum, the fairest and gentlest
man that ever breathed! What rubbish!"
"It wasn't just that way, sir. His words was, and I 'eard
him,--'from Nero down to Slocum.'"
"It amounts to the same thing, and is enough to make one laugh, if
he didn't make one want to swear. I hear that that was a very lively
meeting the other night. What was that nonsense about 'the privileged
class'?"
"Well, there is a privileged class in the States."
"So there is, but it's a large class, Denyven. Every soul of us
has the privilege of bettering out condition if we have the brain and
the industry to do it. Energy and intelligence come to the front, and
have the right to be there. A skillful workman gets double the pay of
a bungler, and deserves it. Of course there will always be rich and
poor, and sick and sound, and I don't see how that can be changed.
But no door is shut against ability, black or white. Before the year
2400 we shall have a chrome-yellow president and a black-and-tan
secretary of the treasury. But, seriously, Denyven, whoever talks
about privileged classes here does it to make mischief. There are
certain small politicians who reap their harvest in times of public
confusion, just as pickpockets do. Nobody can play the tyrant or the
bully in this country,--not even a workingman. Here's the Association
dead against an employer who, two years ago, ran his yard full-handed
for a twelvemonth at a loss, rather than shut down, as every other
mill and factory in Stillwater did. For years and years the
Association has prevented this employer from training more than two
apprentices annually. The result is, eighty hands find work, instead
of a hundred and eighty. Now, that can't last."
"It keeps wages fixed in Stillwater, sir."
"It keeps out a hundred workmen. It sends away capital."
"Torrini says, sir"--
"Steer clear of Torrini and what he says. He's a dangerous
fellow--for his friends. It is handsome in you, Denyven, to speak up
for him--with that eye of yours."
"Oh, I don't love the man, when it comes to that; but there's no
denying he's right smart," replied Denyven, who occasionally marred
his vernacular with Americanisms. "The Association couldn't do
without him."
"But Slocum's Yard can," said Richard, irritated to observe the
influence Torrini exerted on even such men as Denyven.
"That's between you and him, sir, of course, but"--
"But what?"
"Well, sir, I can't say hexactly; but if I was you I would bide a
bit."
"No, I think Torrini's time has come."
"I don't make bold to advise you, sir. I merely throws out the
hobservation."
With that Denyven departed to apply to his bruises such herbs and
simples as a long experience had taught him to be efficacious.
He had gone only a few rods, however, when it occurred to him that
there were probabilities of a stormy scene in the yard; so he turned
on his tracks, and followed Richard Shackford.
Torrini was a Neapolitan, who had come to the country seven or
eight years before. He was a man above the average intelligence of
his class; a marble worker by trade, but he had been a fisherman, a
mountain guide among the Abruzzi, a soldier in the papal guard, and
what not, and had contrived to pick up two or three languages, among
the rest English, which he spoke with purity. His lingual gift was
one of his misfortunes.
Among the exotics in Stillwater, which even boasted a featureless
Celestial, who had unobtrusively extinguished himself with a
stove-pipe hat, Torrini was the only figure that approached
picturesqueness. With his swarthy complexion and large, indolent
eyes, in which a southern ferocity slept lightly, he seemed to
Richard a piece out of his own foreign experience. To him Torrini was
the crystallization of Italy, or so much of that Italy as Richard had
caught a glimpse of at Genoa. To the town-folks Torrini perhaps
vaguely suggested hand-organs and eleemosynary pennies; but Richard
never looked at the straight-limbed, handsome fellow without
recalling the Phrygian-capped sailors of the Mediterranean. On this
account, and for other reasons, Richard had taken a great fancy to
the man. Torrini had worked in the ornamental department from the
first, and was a rapid and expert carver when he chose. He had
carried himself steadily enough in the beginning, but in these later
days, as Mr. Slocum had stated, he was scarcely ever sober. Richard
had stood between him and his discharge on several occasions, partly
because he was so skillful a workman, and partly through pity for his
wife and children, who were unable to speak a word of English. But
Torrini's influence on the men in the yard,--especially on the
younger hands, who needed quite other influences,--and his
intemperate speeches at the trades-union, where he had recently
gained a kind of ascendancy by his daring, were producing the worst
effects.
At another hour Richard might have been inclined to condone this
last offense, as he had condoned others; but when he parted from
Denyven, Richard's heart was still hot with his cousin's insult. As
he turned into the yard, not with his usual swinging gait, but with a
quick, wide step, there was an unpleasant dilation about young
Shackford's nostrils.
Torrini was seated on a block of granite in front of the upper
sheds, flourishing a small chisel in one hand and addressing the men,
a number of whom had stopped work to listen to him. At sight of
Richard they made a show of handling their tools, but it was so clear
something grave was going to happen that the pretense fell through.
They remained motionless, resting on their mallets, with their eyes
turned towards Richard. Torrini followed the general glance, and
pause din his harangue.
"Talk of the devil!" he muttered, and then, apparently continuing
the thread of his discourse, broke into a strain of noisy
declamation.
Richard walked up to him quietly.
"Torrini," he said, "you can't be allowed to speak here, you
know."
"I can speak where I like," replied Torrini gravely. He was drunk,
but the intoxication was not in his tongue. His head, as Denyven had
asserted, was as clear as a fog-horn.
"When you are sober, you can come to the desk and get your pay and
your kit. You are discharged from the yard."
Richard was standing within two paces of the man, who looked up
with an uncertain smile, as if he had not quite taken in the sense of
the words. Then, suddenly straightening himself, he exclaimed,--
"Slocum don't dare do it!"
"But I do."
"You!"
"When I do a thing Mr. Slocum backs me."
"But who backs Slocum,--the Association, may be?"
"Certainly the Association ought to. I want you to leave the yard
now."
"He backs Slocum," said Torrini, settling himself on the block
again, "and Slocum backs down," at which there was a laugh among the
men.
Richard made a step forward.
"Hands off!" cried a voice from under the sheds.
"Who said that?" demanded Richard, wheeling around. No one
answered, but Richard had recognized Durgin's voice. "Torrini, if you
don't quit the yard in two minutes by the clock yonder, I shall put
you out by the neck. Do you understand?"
Torrini glared about him confusedly for a moment, and broke into
voluble Italian; then, without a warning gesture, sprung to his feet
and struck at Richard. A straight red line, running vertically the
length of his cheek, showed where the chisel had grazed him. The
shops were instantly in a tumult, the men dropping their tools and
stumbling over the blocks, with cries of "Keep them apart!" "Shame on
you!" "Look out, Mr. Shackford!"
"Is it mad ye are, Torrany!" cried Michael Hennessey, hurrying
from the saw-bench. Durgin held him back by the shoulders.
"Let them alone," said Durgin.
The flat steel flashed again in the sunlight, but fell harmlessly,
and before the blow could be repeated, Richard had knitted his
fingers in Torrini's neckerchief and twisted it so tightly that the
man gasped. Holding him by this, Richard dragged Torrini across the
yard, and let him drop on the sidewalk outside the gate, where he lay
in a heap, inert.
"That was nate," said Michael Hennessey, sententiously.
Richard stood leaning on the gate-post to recover he breath. His
face was colorless, and the crimson line defined itself sharply
against the pallor; but the rage was dead within him. It had been one
of his own kind of rages,--like lightning out of a blue sky. As he
stood there a smile was slowly gathering on his lip.
A score or two of the men had followed him, and now lounged in a
half-circle a few paces in the rear. When Richard was aware of their
presence, the glow came into his eyes again.
"Who ordered you to knock off work?"
"That was a foul blow of Torrini's, sir," said Stevens, stepping
forward, "and I for one come to see fair play."
"Give us your 'and, mate!" cried Denyven; "there's a pair of us."
"Thanks," said Richard, softening at once, "but there's no need.
Every man can go to his job. Denyven may stay, if he likes."
The men lingered a moment, irresolute, and returned to the sheds
in silence.
Presently Torrini stretched out one leg, then the other, and
slowly rose to his feet, giving a stupid glance at his empty hands as
he did so.
"Here's your tool," said Richard, stirring the chisel with the toe
of his boot, "if that's what you're looking for."
Torrini advanced a step as if to pick it up, then appeared to
alter his mind, hesitated perhaps a dozen seconds, and turning
abruptly on his heel walked down the street without a stagger.
"I think his legs is shut off from the rest of his body by
water-tight compartments," remarked Denyven, regarding Torrini's
steady gait with mingled amusement and envy. "Are you hurt, sir?"
"Only a bit of a scratch of the heye," replied Richard, with a
laugh.
"As I hobserved just now to Mr. Stevens, sir, there's a pair of
us!"