Dryfoos could not think of his street or number, and he said, with
uncontrollable fury: "I told you once! Go up to West Eleventh, and drive
along slow on the south side; I'll show you the place."
He could not remember the number of 'Every Other Week' office, where he
suddenly decided to stop before he went home. He wished to see Fulkerson,
and ask him something about Beaton: whether he had been about lately, and
whether he had dropped any hint of what had happened concerning
Christine; Dryfoos believed that Fulkerson was in the fellow's
confidence.
There was nobody but Conrad in the counting-room, whither Dryfoos
returned after glancing into Fulkerson's empty office. "Where's
Fulkerson?" he asked, sitting down with his hat on.
"He went out a few moments ago," said Conrad, glancing at the clock. "I'm
afraid he isn't coming back again today, if you wanted to see him."
Dryfoos twisted his head sidewise and upward to indicate March's room.
"That other fellow out, too?"
"He went just before Mr. Fulkerson," answered Conrad.
"Do you generally knock off here in the middle of the afternoon?" asked
the old man.
"No," said Conrad, as patiently as if his father had not been there a
score of times and found the whole staff of "Every Other Week" at work
between four and five. "Mr. March, you know, always takes a good deal of
his work home with him, and I suppose Mr. Fulkerson went out so early
because there isn't much doing to-day. Perhaps it's the strike that makes
it dull."
"The strike--yes! It's a pretty piece of business to have everything
thrown out because a parcel of lazy hounds want a chance to lay off and
get drunk." Dryfoos seemed to think Conrad would make some answer to
this, but the young man's mild face merely saddened, and he said nothing.
"I've got a coupe out there now that I had to take because I couldn't get
a car. If I had my way I'd have a lot of those vagabonds hung. They're
waiting to get the city into a snarl, and then rob the houses--pack of
dirty, worthless whelps. They ought to call out the militia, and fire
into 'em. Clubbing is too good for them." Conrad was still silent, and
his father sneered, "But I reckon you don't think so."
"I think the strike is useless," said Conrad.
"Oh, you do, do you? Comin' to your senses a little. Gettin' tired
walkin' so much. I should like to know what your gentlemen over there on
the East Side think about the strike, anyway."
The young fellow dropped his eyes. "I am not authorized to speak for
them."
"Oh, indeed! And perhaps you're not authorized to speak for yourself?"
"Father, you know we don't agree about these things. I'd rather not
talk--"
"But I'm goin' to make you talk this time!" cried Dryfoos, striking the
arm of the chair he sat in with the side of his fist. A maddening thought
of Christine came over him. "As long as you eat my bread, you have got to
do as I say. I won't have my children telling me what I shall do and
sha'n't do, or take on airs of being holier than me. Now, you just speak
up! Do you think those loafers are right, or don't you? Come!"
Conrad apparently judged it best to speak. "I think they were very
foolish to strike--at this time, when the Elevated roads can do the
work."
"Oh, at this time, heigh! And I suppose they think over there on the East
Side that it 'd been wise to strike before we got the Elevated." Conrad
again refused to answer, and his father roared, "What do you think?"
"I think a strike is always bad business. It's war; but sometimes there
don't seem any other way for the workingmen to get justice. They say that
sometimes strikes do raise the wages, after a while."
"Those lazy devils were paid enough already," shrieked the old man.
"They got two dollars a day. How much do you think they ought to 'a' got?
Twenty?"
Conrad hesitated, with a beseeching look at his father. But he decided to
answer. "The men say that with partial work, and fines, and other things,
they get sometimes a dollar, and sometimes ninety cents a day."
"They lie, and you know they lie," said his father, rising and coming
toward him. "And what do you think the upshot of it all will be, after
they've ruined business for another week, and made people hire hacks, and
stolen the money of honest men? How is it going to end?"
"They will have to give in."
"Oh, give in, heigh! And what will you say then, I should like to know?
How will you feel about it then? Speak!"
"I shall feel as I do now. I know you don't think that way, and I don't
blame you--or anybody. But if I have got to say how I shall feel, why, I
shall feel sorry they didn't succeed, for I believe they have a righteous
cause, though they go the wrong way to help themselves."
His father came close to him, his eyes blazing, his teeth set. "Do you
dare so say that to me?"
"Yes. I can't help it. I pity them; my whole heart is with those poor
men."
"You impudent puppy!" shouted the old man. He lifted his hand and struck
his son in the face. Conrad caught his hand with his own left, and, while
the blood began to trickle from a wound that Christine's intaglio ring
had made in his temple, he looked at him with a kind of grieving wonder,
and said, "Father!"
The old man wrenched his fist away and ran out of the house. He
remembered his address now, and he gave it as he plunged into the coupe.
He trembled with his evil passion, and glared out of the windows at the
passers as he drove home; he only saw Conrad's mild, grieving, wondering
eyes, and the blood slowly trickling from the wound in his temple.
Conrad went to the neat-set bowl in Fulkerson's comfortable room and
washed the blood away, and kept bathing the wound with the cold water
till it stopped bleeding. The cut was not deep, and he thought he would
not put anything on it. After a while he locked up the office and started
out, he hardly knew where. But he walked on, in the direction he had
taken, till he found himself in Union Square, on the pavement in front of
Brentano's. It seemed to him that he heard some one calling gently to
him, "Mr. Dryfoos!"