"Like hell they will!" This was from a tall, thin, toothless chap. Reason: Tapeworm and booze. Name: Mulligan. Recreation: Chiropodist's favorite. "I'll prove it to you," said Hendrik, very earnestly. "Perhaps _to_ but not _by_ me," muttered Mulligan. "Union wages will be twenty cents an hour." "Never get it!" mumbled an old fellow with what they call waiter's foot--flattened arch. "Never!" "Never," came in chorus from all the others, their voices ringing with conviction. "I'll have the jobs to give out. I guess I know how much you'll get." The flame of hope lit fourteen pairs of blear eyes. Maybe this boob had the cash and desired to separate himself from it. All primitive people think the fool is touched of God. Hunger makes men primitive. "I'll fix the wages!" declared Hendrik again. He saw himself feeding these men; therefore he felt he owned them absolutely. It isn't, of course, necessary actually to feed people, or even to promise to feed them, to own them. Nevertheless, his look of possession imposed on these victims of a democracy. They mutely acknowledged a boss. Instantly perceiving this, a sense of kindly responsibility came upon Hendrik. These were his children. He said, paternally, "We'll now have a beer--on me!" Fleming, to show his divine right to the place of vice-regent, led the way to a joint on Washington Street. Hendrik saw, with carefully concealed delight, the sensation caused even in the Syrian-infested streets of the quarter by the sight of a handful of sandwich-men in full regalia. He heard the exclamations that fell from polyglot lips. It was a foretaste of success, the preface of a famous man's biography! The union drank fifteen beers, slowly--and quickly wiped the day's free lunch from the face of the earth. The huskiest of the three bartenders began to work with one hand, the other being glued to a bung-starter. He felt it had to come. "I'm boss!" said Hendrik to his children as a preliminary to discussing the by-laws. "I'm willin'!" "Same here!" "Let 'er go, cap!" "Suits _me_!" They were all eager to please him--too eager. It made him ask, disgustedly: "Don't you fellows care who is boss?" "Naw! Don't we have to have one, anyhow?" "Yes. But to have one crammed down your throats--" "The beer helps the swallowing, boss," said the hatter with conviction--and a fresh hope! "There doesn't seem to be a man among the whole lot of you," said Hendrik. A young fellow of about twenty-eight, very pale, wearing steel-rimmed spectacles, spoke back, "If you'd starved for three weeks and two days, and on top of it been kicked and cheated and held up, there wouldn't be a hell of a lot of fight in you, my wise gazabo." "That's exactly what would make me fight," retorted Hendrik, angrily. "Each of you has a vote; each of you, therefore, has as much to say as to how this country should be run as any millionaire. Don't you know what to do with your vote?"