"It's a lie!" cried Halsey sternly. "I broke them up. I threw up my job. I quit because I didn't want to see the bread taken out of your mouths. I stood between the company and just what you say. I wouldn't allow them to make it harder for you than it was. I never lost you a cent of wages--I stood for you all the time, I'm with you now. Why, men, I've been at your meetings, I'm one of you! Don't you know? Don't you remember? You've never asked a thing of me I haven't tried to do, that was in reason. You know me! What difference about the union if I'm your sort?" "Yes, ve _do_ know you!" broke in a squat and pallid Jew, forcing himself through the thick to the front, and usurping the place of the wavering leader. "By Gott, ve do know you, Mister Halsey! You'fe lied to us, that's vat you'fe done! You'fe been to our meetings, yess, but you'fe betrayed us! I seen you there, yess!" "That's not true!" answered Halsey hotly. "There isn't a word of truth in it! I've lost everything in the world I've got just _because_ that isn't true. My wife's lying dead in that house back there--just because of that! My child's dead there too--just _because_ of that--I've lost everything in the world I have got--just _because_ that isn't true!" III The Jew shrieked aloud, half-insane. "To hell vith this country!" he said. "To hell vith the rich that rob us. If your vife's dead, it iss vat's right. My vife, she'll die too, she's starring. To hell vith Rawn and all like him!" "Look here, my men, that's about enough of that!" rejoined Halsey. "You're drunk or crazy, and we're not going to stand for that here. It's no place for this kind of talk. I tell you, I've done all I could for you. I haven't sided with Rawn. If I had, I could be rich to-day." "You are rich!" cried the Jew; "and ve are poor. You eat fat, you sleep soft. You _are_ rich! But vat do ve get? I'm hungry! My folks--they are starfing! Ve haf no money. Ve get no money for vork ve did so long. It buys us nothing now. Meat is no more for us; breat, hardly. This _iss_ no country for the people. This _iss_ no land vere laws are just. This _iss_ no republic of man. Jehovah, send Thy power! Smite and spare not, this so wrong a land!"