Читать книгу The Walking Delegate - Scott Leroy - Страница 2

It was toward the latter part of the afternoon that a tall, angular man, in a black overcoat and a derby hat, stepped from the ladder on to the loose planking, glanced about and walked over to the gang of men about the south crane.

"Hello, Buck," they called out on sight of him.

"Hello, boys," he answered carelessly.

He stood, with hands in the pockets of his overcoat, smoking his cigar, watching the crane accurately swing a beam to its place, and a couple of men run along it and bolt it at each end to the columns. He had a face to hold one's look – lean and long: gray, quick eyes, set close together; high cheek bones, with the dull polish of bronze; a thin nose, with a vulturous droop; a wide tight mouth; a great bone of a chin; – a daring, incisive, masterful face.

When the beam had been bolted to its place, Barry, with a reluctance he tried to conceal, walked over to Foley.

"How's things?" asked the new-comer, rolling his cigar into the corner of his mouth and slipping his words out between barely parted lips.

Barry was the steward on the job, – the union's representative. "Two snakes come on the job this mornin'," he reported. "Them two over there, – that Squarehead an' that Guinea. I was goin' to write you a postal card about 'em to-night."

"Who put 'em to work?"

"They said Duffy, Driscoll's superintendent."

Foley grunted, and his eyes fastened thoughtfully on the two non-union men.

"When the boys seen they had no cards, o' course they said they wouldn't work with the scabs. But I said we'd stand 'em to-day, an' let you straighten it out to-morrow."

"We'll fix it now." The walking delegate, with deliberate steps, moved toward the two men, who were sitting astride an outside beam fitting in bolts.

He paused beside the Italian. "Clear out!" he ordered quietly. He did not take his hands from his pockets.

The Italian looked up, and without answer doggedly resumed twisting a nut.

Foley's eyes narrowed. His lips tightened upon his cigar. Suddenly his left hand gripped the head of a column and his right seized the shirt and coat collar of the Italian. He jerked the man outward, unseating him, though his legs clung about the beam, and held him over the street. The Italian let out a frightful yell, that the wind swept along under the clouds; and his wrench went flying from his hand. It struck close beside a mason on a scaffold seventeen stories below. The mason gave a jump, looked up and shook his fist.

"D'youse see the asphalt?" Foley demanded.

The man, whose down-hanging face was forced to see the pavement far below, with the little hats moving about over it, shrilled out his fear again.

"In about a minute youse'll be layin' there, as flat as a picture, if youse don't clear out!"

The man answered with a mixture of Italian, English, and yells; from which Foley gathered that he was willing to go, but preferred to gain the street by way of the ladders rather than by the direct route.

Foley jerked him back to his seat, and a pair of frantic arms gripped his legs. "Now chase yourself, youse scab! Or – " Foley knew how to swear.

The Italian rose tremblingly and stepped across to the flooring. He dropped limply to a seat on a prostrate column, and moaned into his hands.

Without glancing at him or at the workmen who had eyed this measure doubtfully, Foley moved over to the Swede and gripped him as he had the Italian. "Now youse, youse sneakin' Squarehead! Get out o' here, too!"

The Swede's right hand came up and laid hold of Foley's wrist with a grip that made the walking delegate start. The scab rose to his feet and stepped across to the planking. Foley was tall, but the Swede out-topped him by an inch.

"I hold ma yob, yes," growled the Swede, a sudden flame coming into his heavy eyes.

Foley had seen that look in a thousand scabs' eyes before. He knew its meaning. He drew back a pace, pulled his derby hat tightly down on his head and bit into his cigar, every lean muscle alert.

"Get off the job! Or I'll kick youse off!"

The Swede stepped forward, his shoulders hunched up. Foley crouched back; his narrowed gray eyes gleamed. The men in both gangs looked on from their places about the cranes and up on the beams in statued expectation. Barry and Pig Iron hurried up to Foley's support.

"Keep back!" he ordered sharply. They fell away from him.

A minute passed – the two men standing on the loosely-planked edge of a sheer precipice, watching each other with tense eyes. Suddenly a change began in the Swede; the spirit went out of him as the glow from a cooling rivet. His arms sank to his side, and he turned and fairly slunk over to where lay an old brown overcoat.

The men started with relief, then burst into a jeering laugh. Foley moved toward Barry, then paused and, with hands back in his pockets, watched the two scabs make their preparation to leave, trundling his cigar about with his thin prehensile lips. As they started down the ladder, the Swede sullen, the Italian still trembling, he walked over to them with sudden decision.

"Go on back to work," he ordered.

The two looked at him in surprised doubt.

"Go on!" He jerked his head toward the places they had left.

They hesitated; then the Swede lay off his old coat and started back to his place, and the Italian followed, his fearful eyes on the walking delegate.

Foley rejoined Barry. "I'm goin' to settle this thing with Driscoll," he said to the pusher, loudly, answering the amazed questioning he saw in the eyes of all the men. "I'm goin' to settle the scab question for good with him. Let them two snakes work till youse hear from me."

He paused, then asked abruptly: "Where's Keating?"

"Down with the riveters."

"So-long, boys," he called to Barry's gang; and at the head of the ladder he gestured a farewell to the gang about the other crane. Then his long body sank through the flooring.

At the bottom of the thirty-foot ladder he paused and looked around through the maze of beams and columns. This floor was not boarded, as was the one he had just left. Here and there were little platforms on which stood small portable forges, a man at each turning the fan and stirring the rivets among the red coals; and here and there were groups of three men, driving home the rivets. At regular intervals each heater would take a white rivet from his forge, toss it from his tongs sizzling through the air to a man twenty feet away, who would deftly catch it in a tin can. This man would seize the glowing bit of steel with a pair of pincers, strike it smartly against a beam, at which off would go a spray of sparks like an exploding rocket, and then thrust it through its hole. Immediately the terrific throbbing of a pneumatic hammer, held hard against the rivet by another man, would clinch it to its destiny of clinging with all its might. And then, flashing through the gray air like a meteor at twilight, would come another sparkling rivet.

And on all sides, beyond the workmen calmly playing at catch with white-hot steel, and beyond the black crosswork of beams and columns, Foley could see great stretches of housetops that in sullen rivalry strove to overmatch the dinginess of the sky.

Foley caught sight of Tom with a riveting gang at the southeast corner of the building, and he started toward him, walking over the five-inch beams with a practiced step, and now and then throwing a word at some of the men he passed, and glancing casually down at the workmen putting in the concrete flooring three stories below. Tom had seen him coming, and had turned his back upon his approach.

"H'are you, Buck!" shouted one of the gang.

Though Foley was but ten feet away, it was the man's lips alone that gave greeting to him; the ravenous din of the pneumatic hammer devoured every other sound. He shouted a reply; his lip movements signaled to the man: "Hello, fellows."

Tom still kept his ignoring back upon Foley. The walking delegate touched him on the shoulder. "I'd like to trade some words with youse," he remarked.

Tom's set face regarded him steadily an instant; then he said: "All right."

"Come on." Foley led the way across beams to the opposite corner of the building where there was a platform now deserted by its forge, and where the noise was slightly less dense. For a space the two men looked squarely into each other's face – Tom's set, Foley's expressionless – as if taking the measure of the other; – and meanwhile the great framework shivered, and the air rattled, under the impact of the throbbing hammers. They were strikingly similar, and strikingly dissimilar. Aggressiveness, fearlessness, self-confidence, a sense of leadership, showed themselves in the faces and bearing of the two, though all three qualities were more pronounced in the older man. Their dissimilarity was summed up in their eyes: there was something to take and hold your confidence in Tom's; Foley's were full of deep, resourceful cunning.

"Well?" said Tom, at length.

"What's your game?" asked Foley in a tone that was neither friendly nor unfriendly. "Wha' d'youse want?"

"Nothing, – from you."

Foley went on in the same colorless tone. "I don't know. Youse've been doin' a lot o' growlin' lately. I've had a lot o' men fightin' me. Most of 'em wanted to be bought off."

Tom recognized in these words a distant overture of peace, – a peace that if accepted would be profitable to him. He went straight to Foley's insinuated meaning.

"You ought to know that's not my size," he returned quietly. "You've tried to buy me off more than once."

The mask went from Foley's face and his mouth and forehead creased into harsh lines. His words came out like whetted steel. "See here. I would pass over the kind o' talkin' youse've been doin'. Somebody's always growlin'. Somebody's got to growl. But what youse said at the meetin' last night, I ain't goin' to stand for that kind o' talk. Youse understand?"

Tom's legs had spread themselves apart, his black-gloved hands had placed themselves upon his hips, and his brown eyes were looking hard defiance from beneath his cap's peak. "I don't suppose you did like it," he said calmly. "If I remember rightly I didn't say it for the purpose of pleasing you."

"Youse're goin' to keep your mouth goin' then?"

"My mouth's my own."

"Mebbe youse knows what happened to a few other gents that started on the road youse're travelin'?" the steely voice went on insinuatingly. "Duncan – Smith – O'Malley?"

"Threats, huh?" Tom's anger began to pass his control. He sneered. "Save 'em for somebody that's afraid of you!"

The cigar that had so far kept its place in Foley's mouth now fell out, and a few lurid words followed it. "D'youse know I can drive youse clean out o' New York? Yes, an' fix youse so youse can't get a job in the iron trade in the country? Except as a scab. Which's just about what you are!"

The defiant glow in Tom's eyes flared into a blaze of anger. He stepped up to Foley, his fists still on his hips, and fairly thrust his square face into the lean one of the walking delegate.

"If you think I'm afraid of you, Buck Foley, or your bunch of toughs, you're almighty mistaken! I'm going to say what I think about you, and say it whenever and wherever I please!"

Foley's face tightened. His hands clenched in his pockets. But he controlled himself. He had the wisdom of a thousand fights, – which is, never to fight unless you have to, or unless there is something to gain. "I've got just one thing to say to youse, an' that's all," he said, and his low, steely voice cut distinctly through the hammer's uproar. "If I hear any more about your talk, – well, Duncan an' O'Malley'll have some new company."

He turned about shortly, and stepped along beams to a ladder, and down that; leaving Tom struggling with a furious desire to follow and close with him. Out of the building, he made for the office of Mr. Driscoll as rapidly as street car could take him. On leaving the elevator in the Broadway building he strode to a door marked "Driscoll & Co. – Private – Enter Next Door," and without hesitation turned the knob. He found himself in a small room, very neat, whose principal furniture was a letter file and a desk bearing a typewriter. Over the desk was a brown print of William Morris. The room had two inner doors, one, as Foley knew, opening into the general offices, and the other into Mr. Driscoll's private room.

A young woman rose from the desk. "What is it?" she asked, with a coldness drawn forth by his disregard of the sign on the door.

"I want to see Mr. Driscoll. Tell him Foley wants to speak to him."

She went through Mr. Driscoll's door, and Foley heard his name announced. There was a hesitant silence, then he heard the words, "Well, let him come in, Miss Arnold."

Miss Arnold immediately reappeared. "Will you step in, please."

As he entered the door Foley put on his hat, which he had removed in the presence of the secretary, pulling it aggressively down over one eye.

"Hello, Driscoll," he greeted the contractor, who had swung about from a belittered desk; and he closed the door behind him.

Mr. Driscoll pointed to a chair, but his face deepened a shade. Foley seated himself, and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his bony hands clasped.

"Well, what can I do for you?" queried Mr. Driscoll shortly.

Foley knew his man. He had met Mr. Driscoll many times at conferences with the Executive Committee of the Iron Employers' Association, and had read him as though he were large print. He noted with satisfaction the color in the contractor's face.

The walking delegate spoke with extreme deliberation. "I come around, Mister Driscoll, to find out what the hell youse mean by workin' scabs on that St. Etienne job. Youse signed an agreement to work only union men, but if I didn't watch youse, youse'd have your work alive with scabs. Now, damn youse, unless youse get them scabs off that job an' do it quicker'n youse ever done anything before, youse'll wish youse had!"

Foley made no mistake in his pre-calculation of the effect of this speech. Mr. Driscoll sprang to his feet, with a trembling that his reddish-gray whiskers exaggerated. His glasses tumbled from his nose, and his feet scrunched them unnoted into the rug. "If there's a scab on the job, I didn't know it. If those men're scabs Duffy must have made a mistake. If – "

"If one o' youse bosses ever breaks a contract, oh, it's always a mistake!"

"If you'd come around here and talked like a gentleman, I'd had 'em off inside of an hour," Mr. Driscoll roared. "But, by thunder, I don't let any walking delegate insult me and tell me what I've got to do!"

"Then youse ain't goin' to fire the scabs?"

"Not till hell freezes over!"

Mr. Driscoll's eyes clicked, and he banged his pudgy fist upon his desk.

"Then the men'll go back to work on the day hell freezes over," returned Foley, rising to go. "But I have an idea youse'll want to see me a day or two before then. I've come to youse this time. The next time we talk, youse'll come to me. There's my card." And he went out with the triumphant feeling of the man who can guide events.

At ten o'clock the next morning he clambered again to the top of the St. Etienne Hotel. The Italian and Swede were still at work.

"Lay down your tools, boys!" he called out to the two gangs. "The job's struck!"

The men crowded around him, demanding information.

"Driscoll won't fire the scabs," he explained.

"Kick 'em off, – settle it that-a-way!" growled one of the men. "We can't afford to lose wages on account o' two scabs."

"That'd only settle this one case. We've got to settle the scab question with Driscoll for good an' all. It's hard luck, boys, I know," he said sympathetically, "but we can't do nothin' but strike. We've got to lick Driscoll into shape."

Leaving the men talking hotly as they changed their clothes for the street, Foley went down the ladder to bear the same message and the same comfort to the riveters.

The next morning the general contractor for the building got Mr. Driscoll on the telephone. "Why aren't you getting that ironwork up?" he demanded.

Mr. Driscoll started into an explanation of his trouble with Foley, but the general contractor cut him short. "I don't care what the trouble is. What I care about is that you're not getting that ironwork up. Get your men right back to work."

"How?" queried Mr. Driscoll sarcastically.

"That's your business!" answered the general contractor, and rang off.

Mr. Driscoll talked it over with the "Co.," a young fellow of thirty or thereabouts, of polished manner and irreproachable tailoring. "See Foley," Mr. Berman advised.

"It's simply a game for graft!"

"That may be," said the junior partner. "But what can you do?"

"I won't pay graft!"

Mr. Berman shrugged his shapely shoulders and withdrew. Mr. Driscoll paced his office floor, tugged at his whiskers, and used some language that at least had the virtue of being terse. With the consequence, that he saw there was nothing for him but to settle as best as he could. In furious mortification he wrote to Foley asking him to call. The answer was a single scrawled sentence: "If you want to see me, I live at – West One Hundred and Fifteenth Street."

The instant after this note was read its fragments were in Mr. Driscoll's waste basket. He'd suffer a sulphurous fate before he'd do it! But the general contractor descended upon him in person, and there was a bitter half hour. The result was that late Saturday afternoon Mr. Driscoll locked his pride in his desk, put his checkbook in his pocket, and set forth for the number on West One Hundred and Fifteenth Street.

A large woman, of dark voluptuous beauty, with a left hand like a jeweller's tray, answered his knock and led him into the parlor, on whose furnishings more money than taste had been spent. The room was a war of colors, in which the gilt of the picture frames, enclosing oblongs of high-hued sentiment, had the best of the conflict, and in which baby blue, showing in pictures, upholstery and a fancy lamp shade, was an easy second, despite its infantility.

Foley sat in a swinging rocker, reading an evening paper, his coat off, his feet in slippers. He did not rise. "Hello! Are they havin' zero weather in hell?"

Mr. Driscoll passed the remark. "I guess you know what I'm here for."

"If youse give me three guesses, I might be able to hit it. But chair bottom's as cheap as carpet. Set down."

Mr. Driscoll sank into an upholstered chair, and a skirmish began between his purple face and the baby blue of the chair's back. "Let's get to business," he said.

"Won't youse have a drink first?" queried Foley, with baiting hospitality.

Mr. Driscoll's hands clenched the arms of the chair. "Let's get to business."

"Well, – fire away."

"You know what it is."

"I can't say's I do," Foley returned urbanely.

The contractor's hands dug again into the upholstery. "About the strike you called on the St. Etienne."

"Oh, that! – Well?"

Mr. Driscoll gulped down pride and anger and went desperately to the point. "What'll I have to do to settle it?"

"Um! Le's see. First of all, youse'll fire the scabs?"

"Yes."

"Seems to me I give youse the chance to do that before, an' end it right there. But it can't end there now. There's the wages the men's lost. Youse'll have to pay waitin' time."

"Extortion, you mean," Mr. Driscoll could not refrain from saying.

"Waitin' time," Foley corrected blandly.

"Well, – how much?" Mr. Driscoll remarked to himself that he knew what part of the "waiting time" the men would get.

Foley looked at the ceiling and appeared to calculate. "The waitin' time'll cost youse an even thousand."

"What!"

"If youse ain't learnt your lesson yet, youse might as well go back." He made as if to resume his paper.

Mr. Driscoll swallowed hard. "Oh, I'll pay. What else can I do? You've got me in a corner with a gun to my head."

Foley did not deny the similitude. "youse're gettin' off dirt cheap."

"When'll the men go back to work?"

"The minute youse pay, the strike's off."

Mr. Driscoll drew out his check-book, and started to fill in a check with a fountain pen.

"Hold on there!" Foley cried. "No checks for me."

"What's the matter with a check?"

"Youse don't catch me scatterin' my name round on the back o' checks. D'youse think I was born yesterday?"

"Where's the danger, since the money's to go to the men for waiting time?" Mr. Driscoll asked sarcastically.

"It's cash or nothin'," Foley said shortly.

"I've no money with me. I'll bring it some time next week."

"Just as youse like. Only every day raises the price."

Mr. Driscoll made haste to promise to deliver the money Monday morning as soon as he could get it from his bank. And Foley thereupon promised to have the men ready to go back to work Monday afternoon. So much settled, Mr. Driscoll started to leave. He was suffocating.

"Won't youse have a drink?" Foley asked again, at the door.

Mr. Driscoll wanted only to get out of Foley's company, where he could explode without having it put in the bill. "No," he said curtly.

"Well! – now me, when I got to swallow a pill I like somethin' to wash it down."

The door slammed, and Mr. Driscoll puffed down the stairs leaving behind him a trail of language like a locomotive's plume.