"I wish the whole confounded, sickening business could be ended. Of course the company will win. New men will be at the barns and power-houses early to-morrow, prepared to run the cars, and the court will enjoin strikers from active interference. At the first shot the militia will be called out to take a hand, and then the poor devils running around like blind adders will be slaughtered. You women ought to stop it. Some of you firebrands will land in jail." "Jail sounds dreadful, but after all it is not so bad; has its perquisites that wealth furnishes. I tried it once. The rich, old Jew who arrested me for stealing a Satsuma vase was so terrified when it was found where a negro porter had pawned it, that he sent his superb carriage and horses and liveried coachman to carry me from jail to my lodgings. It was my first and last ride on satin cushions. Good-night, Mr. Coolidge." When the door closed behind him, she counted the spice cakes into a paper bag, placed it in the bundle of aprons, and wrapped the whole in a square of oil cloth. Pushing her hair back from her brow, she drew a black veil closely around her face, tied the ends under her chin, and put on her long waterproof cloak, lifting the cape over her head, where she fastened it with a safety pin. Under the grey overhanging folds of the cape the fair, cold face looked serene as a nun's. Extinguishing the flame of the oil stove, her eyes rested a moment on the picture of Leighton, then she lowered the gas jet at the machine, picked up the bundle, locked the door, and dropped the key in her pocket as she went out to the street. The snow fall was light and intermittent, but now and then the crystal facets glittered in the vivid bluish glare of quivering electric globes. Three hours later Father Temple, passing through the city on his way south, stood, valise in hand, on a street corner, waiting for a downtown car, and fearful he might miss the train where his sleeping berth had been engaged. No car came from any quarter, and he walked on, hoping to be overtaken. Soon a steady, rapid tread of many feet sounded from the rear, and a squad of police dashed past him. "What is the matter with the cars?" he shouted to the hurrying column. One man looked over his shoulder. "The strike is on. Street car track torn up." In a marvellously short time the crowded pavement became a dense mass of men and women struggling slowly forward; then a dull, deep, sullen roar, that shook windows and doors, rolled up to the starless sky where snow feathers fluttered. A woman screamed: "The brutes are firing cannon into the poor strikers!" "Not much! Some devilish striker throwing a bomb," answered her husband.