Working at his routine labor, his mind was not upon it. No, rather it dwelt upon the vast discovery he had made—or seemed to have made—the night before. Clearly limned before his vision, he still saw the notes, the plans, the calculations he had been able to decipher in the Billionaire’s lost note-book—the note-book which now, deep in the pocket of his jumper that hung behind him on a hook against the wall, drew his every thought, as steel draws the compass-needle.
“Incredible, yet true!” he pondered, as he filed a brass casting for a new-type dynamo. “These men are plotting to strangle the world to death—to strangle, if they cannot own and rule it! And, what’s more, I see nothing to prevent their doing it. The plan is sound. They have the means. At this very moment, the whole human race is standing in the shadow of a peril so great, a slavery so imminent, that the most savage war of conquest ever waged would be a mere skirmish, by comparison!”
Mechanically he labored on and on, turning the tremendous problem in his brain, striving in vain for some solution, some grasp at effective opposition. And, as he thought, a kind of dumb hopelessness settled down about him, tangible almost as a curtain black and heavy.
“What shall I do?” he muttered to himself. “What can I do, to strike these devils from their villainous plan of mastery?”
As yet, he saw nothing clearly. No way seemed open to him. Alone, he knew he could do nothing; yet whither should he turn for help? To rival capitalist groups? They would not even listen to him; or, if they listened and believed, they would only combine with the plotters, or else, on their own hook, try to emulate them. To the labor movement? It would mock him as a chimerical dreamer, despite all his proofs. At best, he might start a few ineffectual strikes, petty and futile, indeed, against this vast, on-moving power. To the Socialists? They, through their press and speakers—in case they should believe him and co-operate with him—could, indeed, give the matter vast publicity and excite popular opposition; but, after all, could they abort the plan? He feared they could not. The time, he knew, was not yet ripe when Labor, on the political field, could meet and overthrow forces such as these.
And so, for all his fevered thinking, he got no radical, no practical solution of the terrible problem. More and more definitely, as he weighed the pros and cons, the belief was borne in upon him that in this case he must appeal to nobody but himself, count on nobody, trust in nobody save Gabriel Armstrong.
“I must play a lone hand game, for a while at least,” he concluded, as he finished his casting and took another. “Later, perhaps, I can enlist my comrades. But for now, I must watch, wait, work, all alone. Perhaps, armed with this knowledge—invaluable knowledge shared by no one—I can meet their moves, checkmate their plans and defeat their ends. Perhaps! It will be a battle between one man, obscure and without means, and two men who hold billions of dollars and unlimited resources in their grasp. A battle unequal in every sense; a battle to the death. But I may win, after all. Every probability is that I shall lose, lose everything, even my life. Yet still, there is a chance. By God, I’ll take it!”
The last words, uttered aloud, seemed to spring from his lips as though uttered by the very power of invincible determination. A sneer, behind him, brought him round with a start. His gaze widened, at sight of Herzog standing there, cold and dangerous looking, with a venomous expression in those ill-mated eyes of his.
“Take it, will you?” jibed the scientist. “You thief!”
Gabriel sprang up so suddenly that his stool clattered over backward on the red-tiled floor. His big fist clenched and lifted. But Herzog never flinched.
“Thief!” he repeated, with an ugly thrust of the jaw. Servile and crawling to his masters, the man was ever arrogant and harsh with those beneath his authority. “I repeat the word. Drop that fist, Armstrong, if you know what’s good for you. I warn you. Any disturbance, here, and—well, you know what we can do!”
The electrician paled, slightly. But it was not through cowardice. Rage, passion unspeakable, a sudden and animal hate of this lickspittle and supine toady shook him to the heart’s core. Yet he managed to control himself, not through any personal apprehension, but because of the great work he knew still lay before him. At all hazards, come what might, he must stay on, there, at the Oakwood Heights plant. Nothing, now, must come between him and that one supreme labor.
Thus he controlled himself, with an effort so tremendous that it wrenched his very soul. This trouble, whatever it might be, must not be noised about. Already, up and down the shop, workers were peering curiously at him. He must be calm; must pass the insult, smooth the situation and remain employed there.
“I—I beg pardon,” he managed to articulate, with pale lips that trembled. He wiped the beaded sweat from his broad forehead. “Excuse me, Mr. Herzog. I—you startled me. What’s the trouble? Any complaint to make? If so, I’m here to listen.”
Herzog’s teeth showed in a rat-like grin of malice.
“Yes, you’ll listen, all right enough,” he sneered. “I’ve named you, and that goes! You’re a thief, Armstrong, and this proves it! Look!”
From behind his back, where he had been holding it, he produced the little morocco-covered book. Right in Armstrong’s face he shook it, with an oath.
“Steal, will you?” he jibed. “For it’s the same thing—no difference whether you picked it out of Mr. Flint’s pocket or found it on the floor here, and tried to keep it! Steal, eh? Hold it for some possible reward? You skunk! Lucky you haven’t brains enough to make out what’s in it! Thought you’d keep it, did you? But you weren’t smart enough, Armstrong—no, not quite smart enough for me! After looking the whole place over, I thought I’d have a go at a few pockets—and, you see? Oh, you’ll have to get up early to beat me at the game you—you thief!”
With the last word, he raised the book and struck the young man a blistering welt across the face with it.
Armstrong fell back, against the bench, perfectly livid, with the wale of the blow standing out red and distinct across his cheek. Then he went pale as death, and staggered as though about to faint.
“God—God in heaven!” he gasped. “Give me—strength—not to kill this animal!”
A startled look came into Herzog’s face. He recognized, at last, the nature of the rage he had awakened. In those twitching fists and that white, writhen face he recognized the signs of passion that might, on a second’s notice, leap to murder. And, shot through with panic, he now retreated, like the coward he was, though with the sneer still on his thin and cruel lips.
“Get your time!” he commanded, with crude brutality. “Go, get it at once. You’re lucky to get off so easily. If Flint knew this, you’d land behind bars. But we want no scenes here. Get your money from Sanderson, and clear out. Your job ended the minute my hand touched that book in your pocket!”
Still Armstrong made no reply. Still he remained there, dazed and stricken, pallid as milk, a wild and terrible light in his blue eyes.
An ugly murmur rose. Two or three of his fellow-workmen had come drifting down the shop, toward the scene of altercation. Another joined them, and another. Not one of them but hated Herzog with a bitter animosity. And now perhaps, the time was come to pay a score or two.
But Armstrong, suddenly lifting his head, faced them all, his comrades. His mind, quick-acting, had realized that, now his possession of the book had been discovered, his chances of discovering anything more, at the works, had utterly vanished. Even though he should remain, he could do nothing there. If he were to act, it must be from the outside, now, following the trend of events, dogging each development, striving in hidden, devious ways—violent ways, perhaps—to pull down this horrible edifice of enslavement ere it should whelm and crush the world.
So, acting as quickly as he had thought, and now ignoring the man Herzog as though he had never existed, Armstrong faced his fellows.
“It’s all right, boys,” said he, quite slowly, his voice seeming to come from a distance, his tones forced and unnatura
l. “It’s all right, every way. I’m caught with the goods. Don’t any of you butt in. Don’t mix with my trouble. For once I’m glad this is a scab shop, otherwise there might be a strike, here, and worse Hell to pay than there will be otherwise. I’m done. I’ll get my time, and quit. But—remember one thing, you’ll understand some day what this is all about.
“I’m glad to have worked with you fellows, the past few months. You’re all right, every one of you. Good-bye, and remember—”
“Here, you men, get back to work!” cried Herzog, suddenly. “No hand-shaking here, and no speech-making. This man’s a sneak-thief and he’s fired, that’s all there is to it. Now, get onto your job! The first man that puts up a complaint about it, can get through, too!”
For a moment they glowered at him, there in the white-lighted glare of the big shop. A fight, even then, was perilously near, but Armstrong averted it by turning away.
“I’m done.” he repeated. He gathered up a few tools that belonged to him, personally, gave one look at his comrades, waved a hand at them, and then, followed by Herzog, strode off down the long aisle, toward the door.
“Herzog,” said he, calmly and with cold emphasis, “listen to this.”
“Get out! Get your time, I tell you, and go!” repeated the bully. “To Hell with you! Clear out of here!”
“I’m going,” the young man answered. “But before I do, remember this; you grazed death, just now. Well for you, Herzog, almighty well for you, my temper didn’t best me. For remember, you struck me and called me ‘thief’—and that sort of thing can’t be forgotten, ever, even though we live a thousand years.
“Remember, Herzog—not now, but sometime. Remember that one word—sometime! That’s all!”
With no further speech, and while Herzog still stood there by the shop door, sneering at him, Armstrong turned and passed out. A few minutes later he had been paid off, had packed his knapsack with his few belongings, and was outside the big palisade, striding along the hard and glaring road toward the station.
“I did it,” his one overmastering thought was. “Thank heaven, I did it! I held my temper and my tongue, didn’t kill that spawn of Hell, and saved the whole situation. I’m out of a job, true enough, and out of the plant; but after all, I’m free—and I know what’s in the wind!
“There’s yet hope. There’ll be a way, a way to do this work! What a man must do, he can do!”
Up came Armstrong’s chin, as he walked. His shoulders squared, with strength and purpose, and his stride swung into the easy machine gait that had already carried him so many thousand miles along the hard and bitter highways of the world.
As he strode away, on the long road toward he knew not what, words seemed to form and shape in his strengthened and refortified mind—words for long years forgotten—words that he once had heard at his mother’s knee:
“He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city!”
CHAPTER X.
A GLIMPSE AT THE PARASITES.
The Longmeadow Country Club, on the Saturday afternoon following Armstrong’s abrupt dismissal, was a scene of gaiety and beauty without compare. Set in broad acres of wood and lawn, the club-house proudly dominated far-flung golf-links and nearer tennis-courts. Shining motors stood parked on the plaza before the club garage, each valued at several years’ wages of a workingman. Men and women—exploiters all, or parasites—elegantly and coolly clad in white, smote the swift sphere upon the tennis-court, with jest and laughter. Others, attended by caddies—mere proletarian scum, bent beneath the weight of cleeks and brassies—moved across the smooth-cropped links, kept in condition by grazing sheep and by steam-rollers. On putting-green and around bunkers these idlers struggled with artificial difficulties, while in shops and mines and factories, on railways and in the blazing Hells of stoke-holes, men of another class, a slave-class, labored and agonized, toiled and died that these might wear fine linen and spend the long June afternoon in play.
From the huge, cobble-stone chimney of the Country Club, upwafting smoke told of the viands now preparing for the idlers’ dinner, after sport—rich meats and dainties of the rarest. In the rathskeller some of the elder and more indolent men were absorbing alcohol while music played and painted nymphs of abundant charms looked down from the wall-frescoes. Out on the broad piazzas, well sheltered by awnings from the rather ardent sun, men and women sat at spotless tables, dallying with drinks of rare hues and exalted prices. Cigarette-smoke wafted away on the pure breeze from over the Catskills, far to northwest, defiling the sweet breath of Nature, herself, with fumes of nicotine and dope. A Hungarian orchestra was playing the latest Manhattan ragtime, at the far end of the piazza. It was, all in all, a scene of rare refinement, characteristic to a degree of the efflorescence of American capitalism.
At one of the tables, obviously bored, sat Catherine Flint, only daughter of the Billionaire. A rare girl, she, to look upon—deep-bosomed and erect, dressed simply in a middy-blouse with a blue tie, a khaki skirt and low, rubber-soled shoes revealing a silk-stockinged ankle that would have attracted the enthusiastic attention of gentlemen in any city of the world. No hat disfigured the coiled and braided masses of coppery hair that circled her shapely head. A healthy tan on face and arms and open throat bespoke her keen devotion to all outdoor life. Her fingers, lithe and strong, were graced by but two rings—a monogram, of gold, and the betrothal ring that Maxim Waldron had put there, only three weeks before.
Impatience dominated her. One could see that, in the nervous tapping of her fingers on the cloth; the slight swing of her right foot as she sat there, one knee crossed over the other; the glance of her keen, gray eyes down the broad drive-way that led from the huge stone gates up to the club-house.
Beside her sat a nonentity in impeccable dress, dangling a monocle and trying to make small-talk, the while he dallied with a Bronx cocktail, costing more than a day’s wage for a childish flower-making slave of the tenements, and inhaled a Rotten Row cigarette, the “last word” from London in the tobacco line. To the sallies of this elegant, the girl replied by only monosyllables. Her glass was empty, nor would she have it filled, despite the exquisite’s entreaties. From time to time she glanced impatiently at the long bag of golf-sticks leaning against the porch rail; and, now and then, her eyes sought the little Cervine watch set in a leather wristlet on her arm.
“Inconsiderate of him, I’m sure—ah—to keep so magnificent a Diana waiting,” drawled her companion, blowing a lungful of thin blue smoke athwart the breeze. “Especially when you’re so deuced keen on doing the course before dinner. Now if I were the favored swain, wild horses wouldn’t keep me away.”
She made no answer, but turned a look of indifference on the shrimp beside her. Had he possessed the soul of a real man, he would have shriveled; but, being oblivious to all things save the pride of wealth and monstrous self-conceit, he merely snickered and reached for his cocktail—which, by the way, he was absorbing through a straw.
“I say, Miss Flint?” he presently began again, stirring the ice in the cocktail.
“Well?” she answered, curtly.
“If you—er—are really very, very impatient to have a go at the links, why wait for Wally? I—I should be only too glad to volunteer my services as your knight-errant, and all that sort of thing.”
“Thanks, awfully,” she answered, “but Mr. Waldron promised to go round the course with me, this afternoon, and I’ll wait.”
The impeccable one grinned fatuously, invited her again to have a drink—which she declined—and ordered another for himself, with profuse apologies for drinking alone; apologies which she hardly seemed to notice.
“Deuced bad form of Wally, I must say,” the gilded youth resumed, trying to make capital for himself, “to leave you in the lurch, this way!”
Silence from Catherine. The would-be interloper, feeling that he was on the wrong track, took counsel with himself and remained for a moment immersed in what he imagined to be thought. At last, h
owever, with an oblique glance at his indifferent companion, he remarked.
“Devilish hard time women have in this world, you know! Don’t you sometimes wish you were a man?”
Her answer flashed back like a rapier:
“No! Do you wish you were?”
Stunned by this “facer,” Reginald Van Slyke gasped and stared. That he, a scion of the Philadelphia Van Slykes, in his own right worth two hundred million dollars—dollars ground out of the Kensington carpet-mill slaves by his grandfather—should be thus flouted and put upon by the daughter of Flint, that parvenu, absolutely floored him. For a moment he sat there speechless, unable even to reach for his drink; but presently some coherence returned. He was about to utter what he conceived to be a strong rejoinder, when the girl suddenly standing up, turned her back upon him and ignored him as completely as she might have ignored any of the menials of the club.
His irritated glance followed hers. There, far down the drive, just rounding the long turn by the artificial lake, a big blue motor car was speeding up the grade at a good clip. Van Slyke recognized it, and swore below his breath.
“Wally, at last, damn him!” he muttered. “Just when I was beginning to make headway with Kate!”
Vexed beyond endurance, he drummed on the cloth with angry fingers; but Catherine was oblivious. Unmindful of the merry-makers at the other tables, the girl waved her handkerchief at the swiftly-approaching motor. Waldron, from the back seat, raised an answering hand—though without enthusiasm. Above all things he hated demonstration, and the girl’s frank manner, free, unconventional and not yet broken to the harness of Mrs. Grundy, never failed to irritate him.
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