bout the
Siamese twins?"

"What about 'em,--they're dead, ain't they?" replied Durgin, with
surprise.

"I believe so; but when they was alive, if you was to pinch one of
those fellows, the other fellow would sing out. If you was to black
the eye of the left-hand chap, the right-hand chap wouldn't have been
able to see for a week. When either of 'em fetched the other a clip,
he knocked himself down. Labor and capital is jined just as those two
was. When you've got this fact well into your skull, William, I shall
be pleased to listen to your ideas at Grimsey's Hall or anywhere
else."

Such conservatism as Stevens's, however, was necessarily swept out
of sight for the moment. The wealthier citizens were in a state
bordering on panic,--all but Mr. Lemuel Shackford. In his flapping
linen duster, for the weather was very sultry now, Mr. Shackford was
seen darting excitedly from street to street and hovering about the
feverish crowds, like the stormy petrel wheeling on the edges of a
gale. Usually as chary of his sympathies as of his gold, he
astonished every one by evincing an abnormal interest in the
strikers. The old man declined to put down anything on the
subscription paper then circulating; but he put down his sympathies
to any amount. He held no stock in the concerns involved; he hated
Slocum, and he hated the directors of the Miantowona Iron Works. The
least he hoped was that Rowland Slocum would be laid out.

So far the strikers had committed no overt act of note, unless it
was the demolition of Han-Lin's laundry. Stubbs, the provision
dealer, had been taught the rashness of exposing samples of potatoes
in his door-way, and the "Tonsorial Emporium" of Professor Brown, a
colored citizen, had been invaded by two humorists, who, after having
their hair curled, refused to pay for it, and the professor had been
too agitated to insist. The story transpiring, ten or twelve of the
boys had dropped in during the morning, and got shaved on the same
terms. "By golly, gen'l'men!" expostulated the professor, "ef dis yah
thing goes on, dis darkey will be cleaned cl'ar out fo de week's
done." No act of real violence had been perpetrated as yet; but with
bands of lawless men roaming over the village at all hours of the day
and night, the situation was critical.

The wheel of what small social life there was in Stillwater had
ceased to revolve. With the single exception of Lemuel Shackford, the
more respectable inhabitants kep