t until two
weeks later, when it went into effect, and he poured the diminished
sum into her lap, did he break it to her. The next day, Bert and Mary,
already a month married, had Sunday dinner with them, and the matter
came up for discussion. Bert was particularly pessimistic, and muttered
dark hints of an impending strike in the railroad shops.

"If you'd all shut your traps, it'd be all right," Mary criticized.
"These union agitators get the railroad sore. They give me the cramp,
the way they butt in an' stir up trouble. If I was boss I'd cut the
wages of any man that listened to them."

"Yet you belonged to the laundry workers' union," Saxon rebuked gently.

"Because I had to or I wouldn't a-got work. An' much good it ever done
me."

"But look at Billy," Bert argued "The teamsters ain't ben sayin' a word,
not a peep, an' everything lovely, and then, bang, right in the neck,
a ten per cent cut. Oh, hell, what chance have we got? We lose. There's
nothin' left for us in this country we've made and our fathers an'
mothers before us. We're all shot to pieces. We Can see our finish--we,
the old stock, the children of the white people that broke away from
England an' licked the tar outa her, that freed the slaves, an' fought
the Indians, 'an made the West! Any gink with half an eye can see it
comin'."

"But what are we going to do about it?" Saxon questioned anxiously.

"Fight. That's all. The country's in the hands of a gang of robbers.
Look at the Southern Pacific. It runs California."

"Aw, rats, Bert," Billy interrupted. "You're takin' through your lid. No
railroad can ran the government of California."

"You're a bonehead," Bert sneered. "And some day, when it's too late,
you an' all the other boneheads'll realize the fact. Rotten? I tell you
it stinks. Why, there ain't a man who wants to go to state legislature
but has to make a trip to San Francisco, an' go into the S. P. offices,
an' take his hat off, an' humbly ask permission. Why, the governors of
California has been railroad governors since before you and I was born.
Huh! You can't tell me. We're finished. We're licked to a frazzle. But
it'd do my heart good to help string up some of the dirty thieves before
I passed out. D'ye know what we are?--we old white stock that fought in
the wars, an' broke the land, an' made all this? I'll tell you. We're
the last of the Mohegans."

"He scares me to death, he's so violent," Mary said with unconcealed
hostilit