"Huggins gazes at Boggs an' never utters a word; Boggs is too many
for him.
"'Which I'm the last sport,' observes Boggs after a pause, `to put a
limit on the reccreations or meddle with the picnics of any gent,
but this yere voylence of yours, Huggins, has gone too far. I'm
obleeged to say, tharfore, that onless you aims to furnish the
painful spectacle of me bendin' a gun over your head, you had better
sink into silence an' pull your freight. I'm a slow, hard team to
start, Huggins,' says Boggs, 'but once I goes into the collar, I'm
irresist'ble.'
"Huggins don't know much, but he knows Boggs; an' so, followin'
Boggs' remarks, Huggins ups an' ceases to clamor for the Colonel
right thar. Lambs is bellig'rent compared with Huggins. The barkeep,
in the interests of peace, cuts in on the play with the news that
the drinks is on the house, an' with that the eepisode comes to a
close.
"Now you-all has most likely begun to marvel where them labor
struggles comes buttin' in. We're within ropin' distance now. It's
not made cl'ar, but, as I remarks prior, I allers felt like Huggins
is the bug onder the chip when them printers gets hostile that time
an' leaves the agency. Huggins ain't feeble enough mental to believe
for a moment Boggs writes that piece. The fact that Boggs can't even
write his own name--bein' onfortunately wantin' utterly in
eddication--is of itse'f enough to breed doubts. Still, I don't
ondervalue Huggins none in layin' down to Boggs, that time Boggs
allows he's the author. With nothin' at stake more than a fact, an'
no money up nor nothin', he shorely wouldn't be jestified in
contendin' with a gent of Boggs' extravagant impulses, an' who is
born with the theery that six-shooters is argyments.
"But, as I was observin', Huggins is no more misled by them bluffs
of Boggs than he is likely to give up his thoughts of revenge on the
Colonel. Bein' headed off from layin' for the Colonel direct--for
Boggs reminds him at closin' that, havin' asserted his personal
respons'bility for that piece, he'll take it as affronts if Huggins
persists in goin' projectin' 'round for Colonel Sterett--thar's no
doubt in my mind that Huggins goes to slyin' about, an' jumpin'
sideways at them printers on the quiet, an fillin' 'em up with nose-
paint an' notions that they're wronged in equal quantities. An'
Huggins gets results.
"Which the Colonel pays off his five printers every week. It's mebby
the second Saturday after the Huggins trouble, an' the Colonel is
jest finished measurin' up the 'strings,' as he calls 'em, an'
disbursin' the dinero. At the finish, the head-printer stiffens up,
an' the four others falls back a pace an' looks plenty hard.
"'Colonel,' says the head-printer, 'we-all sends on to the national
council, wins out a charter, an' organizes ourse'fs into a union.
You're yereby notified we claims union wages, the same bein' forty-
five centouse a thousand ems from now ontil further orders.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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