"Yes. We ought to strike. You know the dirty deal we're getting. Rotten wages and speed. It's because we ain't got no union and don't fight. We ought to strike like the skirt-finishers." "Police! Police!" Jake howled, rushing to the door. "I'll have you arrested, you dirty little--" "I don't care if he does have me arrested," Yetta went on more quietly after he had gone. "If he was treating us decent, he wouldn't yell for the police, when somebody says 'strike.' I ain't afraid of jail. I'm afraid of staying here on the job and coughing myself to death. I'm going to quit, and you ought to too." "You're a fool. You're making trouble," the bovine Mrs. Levy said with conviction. "No. She ain't," Mrs. Weinstein spoke up. "I guess my man belongs to a union. He's told me lots of times that us working people ain't got no other hope. It's the bosses what make trouble by cheating us. I'll strike, if the rest do." "I'll strike anyhow," Yetta said. "I won't never work for a pig like that, asking me to marry him after the rush season." "I'll strike vid you, Yetta," the girl said who had been to the ball. "My sister's a skirt-finisher. But the strike ain't no good unless everybody quits." "I'll strike," another voice chimed in. "All right," Mrs. Weinstein said. "We'll all strike." "It's foolishness," Mrs. Levy protested, rubbing her trachoma-eaten eyes. But the excitement had caught the rest of the women. And when Jake returned, hatless and breathless, with a phlegmatic Irish policeman, he met all his women coming downstairs. In spite of his frenzied pleading, the policeman refused to arrest them, refused even to arrest Yetta. "I'll take your number. I'll report you, if you don't arrest her. She's been making trouble." "Aw! Go on, ye dirty little Jew. I'll smack your face, if ye talk back to me. And you women, move on. Don't stand around here making a noise or I'll run you in." But on the next corner the group of women did stop. Where should they go? What should they do next? "Nobody'll go back to work," Yetta said, "unless he'll take Mrs. Cohen, too, when she gets rested." "I won't never get rested," the coughing woman said. "Oh, yes, you will, sure," Mrs. Weinstein said. But everybody knew she was lying. The girl whose sister was a skirt-finisher and who knew all about strikes took down the names and addresses of the twelve women. Mrs. Weinstein promised to look after Mrs. Cohen. And Yetta started uptown to the office of the Woman's Trade Union League. And all the long walk her heart was chanting a glad hosanna. She wasn't a speeder any more. She could look free people in the face. CHAPTER X THE W. T. U. L.