"You're lucky to get a quarter and two nights' lodging nowadays," said the old man with waiter's foot. "The time we elected Gilroy I made fifteen bones and was soused for a mont'. Shorty McFadden made thirty-five dollars--" "Any of you Republicans?" "No!" came in a great and indignant chorus. "I used to be!" defiantly asserted the young man with the spectacles and the pale face and the beaten look. "And now?" "Just a lame duck, I guess." "Too much rumatism," suggested a husky voice, and all the others laughed. The depths of degradation are reached when you can laugh at your own degradation. "Are any of you socialists?" asked Hendrik. They looked at him doubtfully. They wished to please him and would have answered accordingly if they had known what he wished to get from them. What they wished to get from him, in the way of speech, was another invitation to tank up. But when in doubt, all men deny. It is good police-court practice. Three veterans, therefore, tentatively said: "No!" Hendrik was disappointed, but did not show it. He asked, "Are any of you Christians?" The crowd fell back. "Is there one man among you who believes in God?" They stared at one another in the consternation of utter hopelessness. Mulligan was the first to break the painful silence. He said, with a sad triumph: "I knew it. Stung again! They'll do anything to get you to listen. We fell for it like boobs." "What is that?" said Hendrik, sharply. "I was sayin'," replied Mulligan, grateful that he was one schooner ahead, anyhow, "that I can listen to a good brother like you by the hour when I ain't thirsty. The dryness in my throat affects my hearin'. If you blow again I'll believe in miracles. How could I help it?" Fourteen pairs of eyes turned hopefully toward the wonder-worker. But he said in the habitual tone of all born leaders: "You--bums, get around! I'm going to lick hell out of Mulligan. And after that, to show I'm boss, I'll blow again. But first the licking." Hendrik gave his hat to Fleming to hold and began to turn up his sleeves. But Mulligan hastily said, "I'm converted, boss!" and actually looked pious. How he did it, nobody could tell, for he was not a Methodist by birth or education. "Mulligan, the union wages will be forty schooners a day." Hendrik said, sternly. Again it was genius--that is, to talk so that men will understand you. "Kill the scabs!" shrieked Mulligan, and there was murder in his eyes. Hendrik Rutgers put his right foot firmly on the second rung of the ladder. He did it by spending seventy-five cents for the second time. Fifteen beers. "Everybody," he said, threateningly, "wait until the schooners are on the bar!" thereby disappointing those who had hoped to ring in an extra glass during the excitement. But all that Hendrik desired was to inculcate salutary notions of discipline and obedience under circumstances that try men's souls. He yelled: "Damn you, step back! All of you! _Back!_" They fell back.