Construction industry -- Fiction; Labor unions -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Strikes and lockouts -- Fiction
With his last word he sprang across to the sill of the open window, five
feet away. Tom had noted Foley's glance and his edging toward the
window, and guessing that Foley contemplated some new move, he had held
himself in readiness for anything. He sprang after Foley, thinking the
walking delegate meant to leap to his death on the stone-paved court
below, and threw his arms about the other's knees. In the instant of
embracing he noticed a fire-escape landing across the narrow court, an
easy jump--and he knew that Foley had had no thought of death.
As Tom jerked Foley from the window sill he tripped over a chair and
fell backward to the floor, the walking delegate's body upon him. Foley
was on his feet in an instant, but Tom lay where he was with the breath
knocked out of him. He dimly heard the union break again into cries;
feet trampled him; he felt a keen shooting pain. Then he was conscious
that some force was turning the edge of the mob from its path; then he
was lifted up and placed at the window out of which he had just dragged
Foley; and then, Petersen's arm supporting him, he stood weakly on one
foot holding to the sill.
For an instant he had a glimpse of Foley, on the platform, his back to
the wall. During the minute Tom had been on the floor a group of Foley's
roughs, moved by some strange reawakening of loyalty, had rushed to his
aid, but they had gone down; and now Foley stood alone, behind a table,
sneering at the crowd.
"Come on!" he shouted, with something between a snarl and a laugh,
shaking his clenched fist. "Come on, one at a time, an' I'll do up every
one o' youse!"
The next instant he went down, and at the spot where he sank the crowd
swayed and writhed as the vortex of a whirlpool. Tom, sickened, turned
his eyes away.
Turned them to see three policemen and two men in plain clothes with
badges on their lapels enter the hall, stand an instant taking in the
scene, and then with drawn clubs plunge forward into the crowd. The cry
of "Police!" swept from the rear to the front of the hall.
"We're after Foley!" shouted the foremost officer, a huge fellow with a
huge voice, by way of explanation. "Get out o' the way!"
The last cry he repeated at every step. The crowd pressed to either
side, and the five men shouldered slowly toward the vortex of the
whirlpool. At length they gained this fiercely swaying tangle of men.
"If youse kill that man, we'll arrest every one o' youse for murder!"
boomed the voice of the big policeman.
The vortex became suddenly less violent. The five officers pulled man
after man back, and reached Foley's body. He was lying on his side,
almost against the wall, eyes closed, mouth slightly gaping. He did not
move.
"Too late!" said the big policeman. "He's dead!"
His words ran back through the crowd which had so lusted for this very
event. Stillness fell upon it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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