[Illustration: THE OSSIFIED MAN LECTURED LONG AND EARNESTLY.] Meanwhile Mr. Scollop's museum was the scene of an even greater tumult. The enormous "Strike!" placard had been posted and had produced an immediate effect. Vast crowds of people, wild to see Grandmother Cruncher, besieged the ticket-office and packed the exhibition-room, where, upon the platform, elsewise deserted, stood that noble old lady in all her pathetic beauty. Mr. Scollop, in a condition of rapture scarcely possible of portrayal, stood all the afternoon in his private office opening wine for the gentlemen of the press and giving them the fullest information. He truly said he had nothing to conceal. He had made an honest man's contract and he would stand by it till he dropped in his tracks. He was not the man to desert a poor old woman in her sorrow at the bidding of an irresponsible clique of labor bosses. The Freaks did not want to strike, anyhow. They were nagged on to it by their leaders, who were not genuine Freaks at all, but professional agitators. Aside from his duty to Grandmother Cruncher, he was not going to have his business run by outsiders--not if he knew himself! There would be no abandonment of principle or position on his part, the public might depend on it. Mr. Scollop professed the deepest sorrow at the annoyance and vexation to which the public was exposed by the unfair conduct of the strikers, but he couldn't help it. It was not his fault. He knew he would have the sympathy of all fair-minded people. He would do his best to satisfy his patrons even under these trying circumstances. The museum was open now, as the reporters could easily see, and would be kept open. Grandmother Cruncher would exhibit and would be the great and permanent feature of his show hereafter, Brotherhood or no Brotherhood!