At the table there were awkward silences, followed by spasmodic local bursts of talk. Sommers, who sat between Miss Hitchcock and Mrs. Lindsay, fell to listening to his host. "I was taken for you to-day, Brome," Mr. Hitchcock said, with a touch of humor in his voice. Porter laughed at the apparent absurdity of the accusation. "I was detained at the office over at the yards. The men and the girls had pretty nearly all gone. I was just about to leave, when a fellow opened the door--he looked like a Swede or a Norwegian. "'Is the boss here?' he asked. "'Yes,' said I; 'what can I do for you?' "'I wants a yob, a yob,' he shouted, 'and no foolin'. I worked for de boss ten years and never lost a day!' "I thought the man was drunk. 'Who did you work for?' I asked. 'For Pullman, in de vorks,' he said; then I saw how it was. He was one of the strikers, or had lost his job before the strike. Some one told him you were in with me, Brome, and a director of the Pullman works. He had footed it clear in from Pullman to find you, to lay hands on you personally." Porter laughed rather grimly. "That's the first sign!" Carson exclaimed. "They'll have enough of it before the works open," Porter added. Parker Hitchcock looked bored. Such things were not in good form; they came from the trade element in the family. His cousin Caspar had Miss Lindsay's attention. She was describing a Polish estate where she had visited the preceding summer. "Did you send him round to our office?" Porter asked jokingly. Sommers's keen eyes rested on his host's face inquiringly. "No-oh," Alexander Hitchcock drawled; "I had a talk with him." "They are rather dangerous people to talk with," Dr. Lindsay remarked. "He was a Norwegian, a big, fine-looking man. He was _all right_. He couldn't talk much English, but he knew that his folks were hungry. 'You gif me a yob,' he kept saying, until I explained I wasn't in the business, had nothing to do with the Pullman works. Then he sat down and looked at the floor. 'I vas fooled.' Well, it seems he did inlaying work, fine cabinet work, and got good pay. He built a house for himself out in some place, and he was fired among the first last winter,--I guess because he didn't live in Pullman." "That's the story they use," Brome Porter said sceptically. "You should call the watchman; they're apt to be dangerous." "A crowd of 'em," put in Carson, "were at the Pullman office this morning; wanted to _arbitrate_." He spoke deprecatingly of their innocence, but Porter's tones were harsh. "To arbitrate! to arbitrate! when we are making money by having 'em quit." Miss Hitchcock turned apprehensively to her companion. Her handsome, clear face was perplexed; she was distressed over the way the talk was going. "It's as bad as polo!" she exclaimed, in low tones. But the doctor did not hear her.