A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago StrikeKing, Charles
General
A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike
King, Charles
Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction; Pullman Strike, 1894 -- Fiction; Strikes and lockouts -- Fiction
proclivities for tearing down and stirring up the existing order of
things, and here was conclusive evidence that the gifted Elmendorf
proposed the complete rebuilding on his own lines of the fabric that
was the revered father's happiest work, even while incidentally devoting
some hours each day to stirring up a similar overturning in society.
That Elmendorf was not destitute of practical business views, however,
may be made apparent from the fact that when Cranston had intimated a
desire to have him name the sum he would consider a fair compensation
for the work, intending then to add a liberal percentage to the
estimate, the scholar replied that it would have to depend upon the
number of days and hours it took from other avocations, and it was now
evident that a long engagement was in contemplation.
Closing the door after him and bidding Mrs. McGrath allow no one to
enter the study until his return unless Mr. Elmendorf should come in,
Major Cranston went in search of him. It was barely noon, up to which
hour he was supposed to be closeted with his pupil at the Allisons'
home. Then after a light luncheon it was his wont to sally forth on a
tramp, Cary starting, but rarely returning, with him. When Cranston was
at head-quarters a fortnight previous, the officers were speaking of the
almost daily appearance about two o'clock of Mr. Elmendorf, who was
possessed with a desire to get into the general's office and impress
that magnate with his views concerning the impending crisis. The
general, however, being forearmed, was always too busy to accord the
interview, one experience having proved more than enough. Everybody was
beginning to give Elmendorf the cold shoulder there, and by this time,
reasoned Cranston, he must have had sense enough to discontinue his
visits. Here, however, he underrated Elmendorf's devotion to his
principles, for such was the tutor's conviction of their absolute wisdom
and such his sense of duty to humanity that he was ready to encounter
any snub rather than be balked in his determination to right the
existing wrongs. Cranston did not want to go to the Allisons' and ask
for Elmendorf. He had that to say which could not be altogether pleasant
and was altogether personal, and he had no right to carry possible
discord into a fellow-citizen's home. The Lambert Library, a noble
bequest, stood within easy range of Allison's house and his own, a sort
of neutral ground, and from there did Cranston despatch a special
messenger with a note.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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