Farnham lost no time in calling upon the Mayor to fulfil his engagement. He found his Honor a little subdued by the news of the morning. None of the strikers of the day before had gone back to work, and considerable accessions were reported from other trades. The worst symptoms seemed to be that many shops were striking without orders. The cessation of work was already greater than seemed at first contemplated by the leading agitators themselves. They seemed to be losing their own control of the workingmen, and a few tonguey vagrants and convicts from the city and from neighboring towns, who had come to the surface from nobody knew where, were beginning to exercise a wholly unexpected authority. They were going from place to place, haranguing the workmen, preaching what they called socialism, but what was merely riot and plunder. They were listened to without much response. In some places the men stopped work; in others they drove out the agitators; in others they would listen awhile, and then shout, "Give us a rest!" or "Hire a hall!" or "Wipe off your chir!" But all the while the crowds gradually increased in the streets and public places; the strike, if it promised nothing worse, was taking the dimensions of a great, sad, anxious holiday. There was not the slightest intention on the part of the authorities to interfere with it, and to do them justice, it is hard to see what they could have done, with the means at their disposal. The Mayor, therefore, welcomed Farnham with great cordiality, made him a captain of police, for special duty, on the spot, and enrolled his list of recruits of the night before as members of the police force of the city, expressly providing that their employment should cost the city nothing, now or hereafter. Farnham again made his rounds of the city, but found nothing especially noteworthy or threatening. The wide town, in spite of the large crowds in the streets, had a deserted look. A good many places of business were closed. There was little traffic of vehicles. The whistle of the locomotives and the rush of trains--sounds which had grown so familiar in that great railroad centre that the ear ceased to be affected by them--being suddenly shut off, the silence which came in their place was startling to the sense. The voices of the striking employees, who retained possession of the Union Passenger Depot, resounded strangely through the vast building, which was usually a babel of shrill and strident sounds. On the whole, the feature which most struck him in this violent and unnatural state of things was the singular good-nature of almost all classes. The mass of the workingmen made no threats; the greater number of employers made no recriminations. All hoped for an arrangement, though no one could say how it was to come. The day passed away in fruitless parleys, and at night the fever naturally rose, as is the way of fevers.