There was wonderful stillness in the crowd, which now had broken into small groups. A conscious tension possessed us, as of nervous watching for an uncertain event. Men spoke to one another in low tones scarcely above a whisper. An hour passed with nothing to break the monotony of its long anxiety. We were fairly shielded from the wind, and the sun had risen high and had begun to lend a generous aid to our efforts at keeping warm in the frost-bit air. The pale crescent of the waning moon had almost faded into the clear blue of the western sky. We soon were aware of the relaxing of tension, and then the men began to drift away toward other factories, or, disappointed, to their homes, or back to the aimless living of the streets. Just then a young Hungarian came among us--a man of twenty-five, perhaps, short and erect and stocky, with an appearance of great muscular strength and a nervous quickness of step which was in full keeping with the wide-eyed inquisitiveness of his round, swarthy face. He was looking inquiringly at the clusters of loitering men and the open gate and the stolid porter in apparently heedless guard before it. I saw his eye sweep the crowd in seeking for a fellow-countryman, for it was written plain upon him that he was an immigrant and innocent of any language but his own. One could fairly see his mental process, it was all so clear: “I am looking for a job in this wide land of freedom to workingmen. Here is a great factory, and the open gate invites me. Why waste the time outside? For my part I shall go in at once and see the boss, and then go quickly on with no loss of time, if I should not be wanted here.” One foot was just over the steel rail upon which the sliding gate moves, when, with the swiftness of the spring of a panther which has been crouching for its prey, the heavy hands of the seemingly careless watchman were upon his shoulders, and the man was held, amazed and paralyzed, in a vice-like grip. “What are you after?” roared the porter in his face. There was a murmured attempt at speech, and then the laborer was faced about with a suddenness and force that set his teeth to rattling in his head, and the porter turned him loose with successive parting kicks, which seemed to lift the fellow from the ground. He was tingling with pain as he slunk in among us, but the expression which he wore was one of strong, appealing bewilderment at the meaning of it all. It was over in a moment, and then the cold, cowering, hungry mass of unhuman humanity at the gate broke into a low, gruff laugh.