Yetta's position was doubly difficult. The boss vest-makers were smarting under their defeat. They regarded the union as an unpleasant innovation, an infringement of their liberty. A visit from Yetta seemed an impertinence. On the other hand the new union was pitifully weak. The treasury was empty. The bosses knew this, knew just how much hunger the strike had meant to their employees. They tried to take advantage of the situation. The Association of Vest Manufacturers, after the disorganization which followed the strike, was getting together again. Their frequent meeting promised a new attack. All the girls felt trouble in the air. There were causes for quarrel in almost every shop. But a new strike--if it failed--would surely wreck the union. Everything was to gain by delaying the new outbreak. Yetta's common sense, supplemented by Mabel's experienced advice, pulled them through many tight places. The crisis came in about a month at the very Crown Vest Company, before which Yetta had tried to kill Pick-Axe. The boss, Edelstein, was just the kind of man to have employed such a thug. He began the attack by discharging three girls who had been prominent in the strike. A clause in the settlement, which he had signed, had said there should be no discrimination against the unionists. If Edelstein was allowed to violate this agreement, the other bosses would surely follow suit, and one by one the little advantages so dearly won would be lost. Yetta tried to reason with the man. He tilted his cigar at a pugnacious angle, put his feet on the desk, and insolently hummed a tune while she talked. "If you think you can run my shop," he said, "you can guess again. The union wants to know why I fired these girls? Well, tell the union I didn't like the way they wore their hair." "It's nine o'clock now," Yetta said. "If you don't reëmploy those girls by three--that's six hours--or give the union a serious reason for their discharge, I'll call a strike on your shop." "Go ahead and call it," he said savagely. "My girls have had enough of your dirty union. They won't try striking again." Although Yetta had managed to deliver her ultimatum with outward calm and a show of confidence, the next six hours were the most unpleasant she had ever spent. Would the girls walk out at her call? If they did not, it would surely kill the union. Edelstein was certainly offering them all sorts of inducements to stay. The other bosses were back of him, urging him on. They wanted to break the union. What had she to offer the girls but hunger and an ideal? There were not ten dollars in the treasury. Most of the girls were still in debt from the first strike; many of them would be dispossessed by their landlords if they struck again.