labor unions. It's been brewing for some little time,
but I didn't want to worry you with it. Unless we announce a flat
increase of twenty per cent in wages to-morrow morning, and declare for
the closed shop, the men will go out on us at noon. I've seen it coming.
It began with the enlarging of the plant and the taking on of the new
men needed. We've always had the open shop, as you know, and it was all
right so long as we were too small for the unions to scrap about. But
now we get the Iron Workers' ultimatum: we can do as we please about
the profit-sharing; but the flat increase must go on the pay-rolls, and
the shop must be run as a closed shop."

If the god of mischance had chosen the moment it could not have been
more opportune for the fire-lighting of malevolence. Griswold's
swing-chair righted itself with a click, and Bainbridge's prophecy that
a hot-hearted proletary was likely to become the hardest of masters
became a prediction fulfilled.

"We'll see them in hell, first, Raymer! Isn't that the way you feel
about it?"

"Partly," allowed the smoker. "But it can hardly be disposed of that
easily, Kenneth. A good third of the men are our old standbys; men who
were in the shops under my father. Some pretty powerful influence has
been brought to bear upon them to swing them against us. I don't know
what it is, but I do know this: every second man we have hired lately
has turned out to be either a loud-mouthed agitator or a silent mixer of
trouble medicine."

"Let the causes go for the present," said Griswold shortly. "We're
talking about the men, now. The ungrateful beggars are merely proving
that it isn't in human nature to meet justice and fairness and generous
liberality half-way. If they want a fight, give it to them. Hit first
and hit hard; that's the way to do. Shut up the plant and make it a
lock-out."

"I was afraid you might say something like that in the first heat of
it," said the young ironmaster. "It's a stout fighting word, and I
guess, under the skin, you're a stout fighting man, Kenneth--which I'm
not. Where are your convictions about the man-to-man obligations? We've
got to take them into the account, haven't we?"

"Damn the convictions!" snapped Griswold viciously. "If I've been giving
you the impression that I'm an impracticable theorist, forget it. These
fellows want a fight: I say give them a fight--all they want of it and a
little more for good measure."

Raymer did not reply at once.