Picking up a bundle of the letterheads, he tore them across, and walking to the front of the room, shook his fist before Sam’s face. “Scab leader!” he shouted, turning and facing the girls. The soft-eyed Jewish girl sprang to her feet. “He’s winning for us,” she said. Harrigan walked toward her threateningly. “Better lose than win a scab victory,” he bellowed. “Who are you anyway? What grafter sent you here?” he demanded, turning to Sam. He launched into a speech. “I have been watching this fellow, I know him. He has a scheme to break down the union and is being paid by the capitalists.” Sam waited to hear no more. Getting up he pulled on his canvas jacket and started for the door. He saw that already he had involved himself in a dozen violations of the unionist code and the idea of trying to convince Harrigan of his disinterestedness did not occur to him. “Do not mind me,” he said, “I am going.” He walked between the rows of frightened, white-faced girls and unbolted the door, the Jewish girl following. At the head of the stairway leading to the street he stopped and pointed back into the room. “Go back,” he said, handing her a roll of bills. “Carry on the work if you can. Get other machines and new printing. I will help you in secret.” Turning he ran down the stairs, hurried through the curious crowd standing at the foot, and walked rapidly along in front of the lighted stores. A cold rain, half snow, was falling. Beside him walked a young man with a brown pointed beard, one of the newspaper reporters who had interviewed him the day before. “Did Harrigan trim you?” asked the young man, and then added, laughing, “He told us he intended to throw you down stairs.” Sam walked on in silence, filled with wrath. He turned into a side street and stopped when his companion put a hand upon his arm. “This is our dump,” said the young man, pointing to a long low frame building facing the side street. “Come in and let us have your story. It should be a good one.” Inside the newspaper office another young man sat with his head lying on a flat-top desk. He was clad in a strikingly flashy plaid coat, had a little wizened, good-natured face and seemed to have been drinking. The young man with the beard explained Sam’s identity, taking the sleeping man by the shoulder and shaking him vigorously. “Wake up, Skipper! There’s a good story here!” he shouted. “The union has thrown out the mail-order strike leader!” The Skipper got to his feet and began shaking his head. “Of course, of course, Old Top, they would throw you out. You’ve got some brains. No man with brains can lead a strike. It’s against the laws of Nature. Something was bound to hit you. Did Roughneck come out from Pittsburgh?” he asked, turning to the young man of the brown beard. Then reaching above his head and taking a cap that matched his plaid coat from a nail on the wall, he winked at Sam. “Come on, Old Top. I’ve got to get a drink.”