ear: "I'll give you two dollars if
you'll step into the nearest hallway with me and tell me that story!"

The man stared at him in astonishment but when Robertson added, "It's
for the _New York Daily Telegraph_," he was posted at once. They made
their way with considerable difficulty to the edge of the crowd and
managed to squeeze into a wide doorway full of people, whose attention,
however, was not directed to the doings on Broadway, but rather to a
meeting that was being held in a large rear room. Robertson managed to
find an unoccupied chair in a neighboring room, which was packed to the
door, and sitting astride it, proceeded to use the back of the chair as
a rest for his note-book. The story turned out to be somewhat
disjointed, for every time a push from the crowd sent the man flying
against the hard wall, he uttered a long series of oaths.

"For Heaven's sake," said Robertson, "quit your swearing! Make a hole in
the wall behind you and hustle with your story!"

"This'll mean at least a column in the _Telegraph_," mused Robertson as
the story neared its end. But he was already listening with one ear to
what was going on in the big room, whence the sharp, clear tones of a
speaker could be heard through the suffocating tobacco fumes. Over the
heads of the attentive crowd hung a few gas-lamps, the globes of which
looked like large oranges. Robertson gave his Mott Street hero the
promised two dollar bill and then made his way to the rear room.
Standing in the doorway, he could clearly distinguish the words of the
speaker, who was apparently protesting in the name of some workmen
against a large manufacturer who had at noon dismissed three thousand of
them.

The orator, who was standing on a table in the rear of the room, looked
like a swaying shadow through the smoke, but his loud appeal completely
filled the room, and the soul-stirring pictures he drew of the misery of
the workmen, who had been turned out on the streets at the word of the
millionaire manufacturer, caused his hearers' cheeks to burn with
excitement.

"--and therefore," concluded the speaker, "we will not submit to the
absolutely selfish action of Mr. Hanbury. As leader of our Union I ask
you all to return to work at the factory to-morrow at the usual hour,
and we will then assert our right to employment by simply continuing our
work and ignoring our dismissal. Of course the simplest and most
convenient thing for Mr. Hanbury is to shut down his pl