There are family traditions among the poor just as there are among the rich. The families of working-men may cling as tenaciously to their traditions as the descendants of an earl. In certain families the sons are compelled by tradition to become bakers, in others machinists; still other lowly family histories urge their members to conduct of one sort or another. It is inherent in them to hold certain beliefs regarding themselves. Here is a family whose tradition is loyalty to another family which has employed the father, son, grandfather; across the street may live a group whose peculiar religion is to oppose all constituted authority and to uphold anarchism. Theories and beliefs are handed down from generation to generation until they assume the dignity of blood laws.
Bonbright was being wrenched to fit into the Foote tradition. Ruth Frazer, his secretary, needed no alterations to conform to the tradition of HER family. This was the leveling tradition; the elevating of labor and the pulling down of capital until there was a dead level of equality—or, perhaps, with labor a bit in the saddle. Probably a remote ancestor of hers had been a member of an ancient guild; perhaps one had risen with Wat Tyler. Not a man of the family, for time beyond which the memory of man runneth not, but had been a whole-souled, single-purposed labor man—trade-union man—extremist—revolutionist. Her father had been killed in a labor riot—and beatified by her. As the men of her family had been, so were the women—so was she.
Rights of man, tyranny of capital, class consciousness had been taught her with her nursery rhymes. She was a zealot. A charming zealot with a soul that laughed and wanted all mankind to be happy with it—a soul that translated itself by her famous grin.
When she thought of capital, of moneyed aristocracy in the mass and in the abstract, she hated it. It was a thing to be uprooted, plotted against, reviled. When she met a member of it in the body, and face to face, as she was meeting Bonbright Foote, she could not hate. He was a man, an individual. She could not withhold from him the heart-warming flash of her smile, could not wish him harm. Somehow, in the concrete, he became a part of mankind, and so entitled to happiness.
She was sincere. In her heart she prayed for the revolution. Her keen brain could plan for the overthrow of the enemy and her soul could sacrifice her body to help to bring it to pass. She believed. She had faith. Her actions would be true to her faith even at a martyr cost. But to an individual whom she saw face to face, let him be the very head and front of the enemy, and she could not wish him personal harm. To a psychologist this might have presented a complex problem. To Ruth it presented no problem at all. It was a simple condition and she lived it.
She was capable of hero worship, which, after all, is the keystone of aristocracies. But her heroes were not warriors, adventurers, conquerors of the world, conquerors of the world's wealth. They were revolutionists. They were men who gave their lives and their abilities to laboring for labor…. Already she was inclining to light the fires of her hero worship at the feet of the man Dulac.
Ruth Frazer's grin has been spoken of. It has been described as a grin. That term may offend some sensitive eye as an epithet applicable only to something common, vulgar. To smile is proper, may even be aristocratic; only small boys and persons of slack breeding are guilty of the grin…. Ruth Frazer's grin was neither common nor vulgar. It was warming, encouraging, bright with the flashing of a quick mind, and withal sweet, womanly, delicious. Yet that it was a grin cannot be denied. Enemies to the grin must make the most of it.
The grin was to be seen, for Dulac had just entered Ruth's mother's parlor, and it glowed for him. The man seemed out of place in that cottage parlor. He seemed out of place in any homelike room, in any room not filled by an eager, sweating, radical crowd of men assembled to hang upon his words. That was the place for him, the place nature had created him to become. To see him standing alone any place, on the street, in a hotel, affected one with the feeling that he was exotic there, misplaced. He must be surrounded by his audience to be RIGHT.
Something of this crossed Ruth's mind. No woman, seeing a possible man, is without her sentimental speculation. She could not conceive of Dulac in a HOME.
"It's been a day!" he said.
"Yes."
"Every skilled mechanic has struck," he said, with pride, as in a personal achievement. "And most of the rest. To-night four thousand out of their five thousand men were with us."
"It came so suddenly. Nobody thought of a strike this morning."
"We were better organized than they thought," he said, running his hand through his thick, black hair, and throwing back his head. "Better than I thought myself…. I've always said fool employers were the best friends we organizers have. The placard that young booby slapped the men in the face with—that did it….That and his spying on us last night."
"I'm sure he wasn't spying last night."
"Bosh! He was mighty quick to try to get our necks under his heel this morning."
"I don't know what happened this morning," she said, slowly. "I'm his secretary, you know. Something happened about that placard. I don't believe he wanted it to go up."
"You're defending him? Of course. You're a girl and you're close to the throne with a soft job. He's a good-looking kid in his namby-pamby Harvard way, too."
"Mr. Dulac!…My job—I was going to ask you what I should do. I want to help the men. I want them to feel that I'm with them, working for them and praying for them. Ought I to quit, too—to join the strike?"
Dulac looked at her sharply, calculatingly. "No," he said, presently, "you can do a lot more good where you are."
"Will there be trouble? I dread to think of rioting and maybe bloodshed. It will be bad enough, anyhow—if it lasts long. The poor women and children!"
"There'll be trouble if they try to turn a wheel or bring in scab labor." He laughed, so that his white teeth showed. "The first thing they did was to telephone for the police. I suppose this kid with a whole day's experience in the business will be calling in strike breakers and strong-arms and gunmen….Well, let him bring it down on himself if he wants to. We're in this thing to win. It means unionism breaking into this automobile game. This is just the entering wedge."
"Won't the automobile manufacturers see that, too?" she asked. "Won't the men have all their power and wealth to fight?"
Dulac shrugged his shoulders. "I guess the automobile world knows whoDulac is to-night," he said, with gleaming eyes.
Somehow the boast became the man. It was perfectly in character with his appearance, with his bearing. It did not impress Ruth as a brag; it seemed a natural and ordinary thing for him to say.
"You've been here just two weeks," she said, a trifle breathlessly; for he loomed big to her girlish eyes. "You've done all this in two weeks."
He received the compliment indifferently. Perhaps that was a pose; perhaps the ego of the man made him impervious even to compliments. There are men so confident in their powers that a compliment always falls short of their own estimate of themselves.
"It's a start—but all our work is only a start. It's preliminary," His voice became oratorical. "First we must unionize the world. Now there are strong unions and weak unions—both arrayed against a capital better organized and stronger than ever before in the world's history. Unionism is primary instruction in revolution. We must teach labor its power, and it is slow to learn. We must prepare, prepare, prepare, and when all is ready we shall rise. Not one union, not the unions of a state, of a country, but the unions of the world…hundreds of millions of men who have been ground down by aristocracies and wealth for generations. Then we shall have such an overturning as shall make the French Revolution look like child's play….A World's Republic—that's our aim; a World's Republic ruled by labor!"
Her eyes glistened as he talked; she could visualize his vision, could see a united world, cleansed of wars, of boundary lines; a world where every man's chance of happiness was the equal of every other man's chance; where wealth and poverty were abolished, from which slums, degradation, starvation, the sordid wickednesses compelled by poverty, should have vanished. She could see a world of peace, plenty, beauty.
It was for this high aim that Dulac worked. His stature increased. She marveled that such a man could waste his thoughts upon her. She idealized him; her soul prostrated itself before him.
So much of accomplishment lay behind him—and he not yet thirty years old! The confidence reposed in him by labor was eloquently testified to by the sending of him to this important post on the battle line. Already he had justified that confidence. With years and experience what heights might he not climb!…This was Ruth's thought. Beside Dulac's belief in himself and his future it was colorless.
Dulac had been an inmate of the Frazer cottage two weeks. In that time he had not once stepped out of his character. If his attitude toward the world were a pose it had become so habitual as to require no objective prompting or effort to maintain. This character was that of the leader of men, the zealot for the cause of the under dog. It held him aloof from personal concerns. Individual affairs did not touch him, but functioned unnoticed on a plane below his clouds. Not for an instant had he sought the friendship of Ruth and her mother, not to establish relations of friendship with them. He was devoted to a cause, and the cause left no room in his life for smaller matters. He was a man apart.
Now he was awkwardly tugging something from his pocket. Almost diffidently he offered it to Ruth. It was a small box of candy.
"Here…" he said, clumsily.
"For me!" Ruth was overpowered. This demigod had brought HER a gift. He had thought about her—insignificant her! True, she had talked with him, had even taken walks with him, but those things had not been significant. It had seemed he merely condescended to the daughter of a martyr to his cause. He had been paying a tribute to her father. But a gift—a personal gift such as any young man might make to a girl whose favor he sought! Could it mean…?
Then she saw that he was embarrassed, actually embarrassed before her, and she was ashamed of herself for it. But she saw, too, that in him was a human man, a man with fears and sensations and desires and weaknesses like other men. After all, a demigod is only half of Olympus.
"Thank you," she said. "Thank you SO much."
"You're not—offended?"
He was recovering himself. In an instant he was back again in character.
"We men," he said, "who are devoted to the Cause have little time in our lives for such things. The Cause demands all. When we go into it we give up much that other men enjoy. We are wanderers. We have no homes. We can't AFFORD to have homes….I," he said, it proudly, "have been in jail more than once. A man cannot ask a woman to share such a life. A man who leads such a life has no place in it for a woman."
"I should think," she said, "that women would be proud to share such a life. To know they were helping a little! To know they were making one comfortable spot for you to come to and rest when you were tired or discouraged…."
"Comforts are not for us," he said, theatrically, yet he did not seem theatrical to her, only nobly self-sacrificing.
"It isn't right," she said, passionately. "The poorest laborer has more than you. He has his home and his family. No matter how poor he is, no matter what he suffers, he has some compensations….And you—you're giving your life and everything in life that's bright and beautiful for that laborer."
"The happiness of one man buying the happiness of millions," he said, his black eyes glowing. "Yet sometimes we have our weak moments. We see and we desire."
"And are entitled to possess," she said.
His eyes glowed upon her hungrily—she read the hunger in them, hunger for HER! It frightened her, yet it made her heart leap with pride. To be looked upon with favor by such a man!
"Some women," he said, slowly, "might live through it. There are women big enough and strong enough—a few, maybe. Big enough to endure neglect and loneliness; to live and not know if their husbands would sleep at home that night or in a jail or be in the middle of a riot on the other side of the world! They could not even depend on their husbands for support….A few might not complain, might be able to endure….You, Miss Ruth—I believe you are one of them!"
Her cheeks paled. Was he—could he be about to ask her to share his life? It was impossible! Yet what else could he mean? To what else could his words be tending? She was awed, frightened—yet warmed by a surge of pride. She thought of her father….If he could see and know! If knowledge could only pass to him that his daughter had been thought worthy by such a man to play her part for the Cause!…She waited tensely, hand pressed to her bosom.
Dulac stepped toward her, barbarically handsome. She felt the force, the magnetism of him. It called to her, compelled her….She could not lift her eyes.
Slowly he approached another step. It was as though he were forced to her against his will. The silence in the room was the tense silence of a human crisis….Then it was broken ruthlessly. There came a pounding on the door that was not a knock, but an alarm. It was imperative, excited, ominous.
"Oh…" Ruth cried.
Her mother was opening the door.
"Dulac! Where's Dulac?" a man's voice demanded.
"Here," he replied. "What is it?"
"O'Hagan's in town," the man panted, rushing into the room. "They've brought in O'Hagan and his gang of bullies."
O'Hagan, king of strike breakers! Ruth knew that name well, and what the arrival of the man of evil omen foretold. It promised violence, riot, bloodshed, suffering.
"They're going to try to run, then," said Dulac, calmly.
"The police have escorted a mob of scabs into the mill yards. They've tried to drive away our pickets. They've locked up Higgins and Bowen. Got Mason, too, but the crowd took him away from the police."
"It's on their own heads," said Dulac, solemnly. "I'll come with you." He turned to Ruth and took her hand. "You see," he said, "it calls me away—even from a moment like that…."
Malcolm Lightener was not a man to send messages nor to depend upon telephones. He was as direct as a catapult, and was just as regardful of ceremony. The fact that it was his and everybody else's dinner hour did not hold him back an instant from having himself driven to the Foote residence and demanding instant speech with Mr. Foote.
Mr. Foote, knowing Lightener, shrugged his shoulders and motionedBonbright to follow him from the table.
"If we asked him to be seated and wait," said he, "Lightener would burst into the dining room."
They found their visitor not seated, but standing like a granite monolith in the center of the library.
"Well," he said, observing no formalities of greeting, "you've chucked a brick into the hornets' nest."
"Won't you be seated?" asked Mr. Foote, with dignified courtesy.
"Seated? No, I've got no time for seats, and neither have you, if you would wake up to it. Do you know what you've done with your bullheadedness? You've rammed the automobile manufacturers up against a crisis they've been dodging for years. Needlessly. There was no more need for this strike at this time than there is for fur overcoats in hell. But just when the hornets were stirred up and buzzing, you had to heave your brick…. And now we've got to back your play."
"I am not aware," said Mr. Foote, icily, "that we have asked assistance."
"If the house next to mine catches fire the owner doesn't have to holler to me for help. I've got to help to keep the blaze from spreading to my own house…. You've never thought beyond the boundaries of Bonbright Foote, Incorporated—that's what's the matter with you. You're hidebound. A blind man could see the unions look at this thing as their entering wedge into the automobile industry. If they break into you they'll break into us. So we've got to stop 'em short."
"If we need any help—" Mr. Foote began.
"Whether you need it or whether you want it," said Lightener, "you get it."
"Let me point out to you," said Mr. Foote, with chilly courtesy, "that my family has been able to manage its business for several generations—with some small success…. Our relations with our employees are our own concern, and we shall tolerate no interference. … I have placed my son in complete charge of this situation, with confidence that he will handle it adequately."
"Huh!" grunted Lightener, glancing at Bonbright. "I heard about THAT. … What I came to say principally was: This thing can be headed off now if you go at it with common sense. Make concessions. Get to this Dulac. You can get your men back to work—and break up this union thing."
"Mr. Lightener, our course is decided on. We shall make no concessions. My son has retained O'Hagan, the strike breaker. To-morrow morning the mills start up as usual, with new men. We have them camped in the yards now. There shall be no compromising. When we have the strikers whipped into their places we'll talk to them—not before."
"What's the idea of putting up the boy as stalking horse? What do you expect to get by hiding behind him?"
"My son was indiscreet. He created a misapprehension among the men as to his attitude toward labor. I am merely setting them right."
"And sewing a fine crop of hatred for the boy to reap."
Mr. Foote shrugged his shoulders "The position of my family has not been doubtful since the inception of our business. I do not propose that my son shall make it so. Our traditions must be maintained."
"If you'd junk a few traditions," said Lightener, "and import a little modern efficiency—and human understanding of human beings—you might get somewhere. You quit developing with that first ancestor of yours. If the last hundred years or so haven't been wasted, there's been some progress. You're wabbling along in a stage coach when other folks use express trains…. When I met the boy here last night, I thought he was whittled off a different stick from the rest of you…. I guess he was, too. But you're tying a string of ancestors around his neck and squeezing him into their likeness."
"My son knows his duty to his family," said Mr. Foote.
"I didn't have a family to owe duty to, thank God," said Lightener, "but I spent quite some time figuring out my duty to myself…. You won't listen to reason, eh? You're going to bull this thing through?"
"My son will act as my son should act," said Mr. Foote.
Lightener turned to where Bonbright stood with set face and eyes that smoldered, and studied him with an eye accustomed to judging men.
"There'll be rioting," he said. "Probably there'll be bloodshed. There'll certainly be a devil of a lot of suffering. Your father is putting the responsibility for it on your shoulders, young fellow. Does that set comfortably on your mind?"
Bonbright was slow to answer. His position was difficult, for it seemed to him he was being asked by a stranger to criticize his father and his family. His own unrest under the conditions which were forced upon him was not to be mentioned. The major point—the conflict between capital as represented by Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, and labor—as represented by the striking employees—he did not understand. He had wanted to understand it; he had felt a human interest in the men, but this was forbidden to him…. Whatever he felt, whatever he thought, whatever dread he might have of the future as it impended over himself—he must be loyal to his name. So when he spoke it was to say in a singularly unboyish voice:
"My father has spoken for me, Mr. Lightener."
For the first time Lightener smiled. He laid a heavy hand on Bonbright's shoulder. "That was well done, my boy," he said. Bonbright was grateful for his understanding.
A servant appeared. "Mr. Bonbright is wanted on the telephone," she said.
It was Rangar. "There's rioting at the plant," the man said, unemotionally. "I have notified the police and taken the necessary steps."
"Very well," said Bonbright. He walked to the library, and, standing in the door, stirred by excitement so that his knees quivered and a great emptiness was within him, he said to his father, "There's rioting at the plant, sir."
Then he turned, put on his coat and hat, and quietly left the house.
There was rioting at the mills! Bonbright was going to see what rioting was like, what it meant. It was no impulse, no boyish spirit of adventure or curiosity, that was taking him, but a command. No sooner had Rangar spoken the words over the telephone than Bonbright knew he must go.
"Whatever is happening," he said to himself, "I'm going to be blamed for it."
With some vague juvenile notion of making himself unrecognizable he turned up the collar of his coat and pulled down his cap….
When still some blocks from the mills a patrol wagon filled with officers careened past him, its gong emitting a staccato, exciting alarm. Here was reality. Bonbright quickened his step; began to run. Presently he entered the street that lay before the face of the factory—a street lighted by arc lamps so that the scene was adequately visible. As far as the main gates into the factory yards the street was in the possession of the police; beyond them surged and clamored the mob, not yet wrought to the pitch of attack. Bonbright thought of a gate around the corner. He would enter this and ascend to his office, whence he could watch the street from his window.
Before the gate a man sat on a soap box, a short club dangling by a thong from his wrist. As Bonbright approached he arose.
"What you want?" he demanded, taking a businesslike grip on his weapon.
"I want to go in," said Bonbright. "I'm Mr. Foote."
The man grinned. "To be sure, Mr. Foote. Howdy, Mr. Foote. You'll be glad to meet me. I'm Santa Claus."
"I tell you I'm Mr. Foote. I want to go inside."
"And I tell you," said the man, suddenly dropping his grin, "to beat it—while you're able."
Youthful rage sent its instant heat through Bonbright. For an instant he meditated jerking the man from that gate by the nape of the neck and teaching him a lesson with his athletic foot…. It was not fear of the result that deterred him; it was the thought that this man was his own employee, placed there by him for this very purpose. If the guard made HIM bristle with rage, how would the sight of the man and his club affect the strikers? He was a challenge and an insult, an invitation to violence. Bonbright turned and walked away, followed by a derisive guffaw from the strike breaker.
Bonbright retraced his steps and approached the rear of the police.Here he was stopped by an officer.
"Where you goin'?"
"I'm Mr. Foote," said Bonbright. "I want to see what's happening."
"I can't help it if you're Mr. Roosevelt, you can't go any farther than this…. Now GIT." He gave Bonbright a violent and unexpected shove, which almost sent the young man off his feet. He staggered, recovered himself, and stood glowering at the officer. "Move!" came the short command, and once more burning with indignation, he obeyed. Here was another man acting in his behalf, summoned to his help. It was thus the police behaved, roughly, intolerantly, neither asking nor accepting explanations. It did not seem to Bonbright this could be the right way to meet the emergency. It seemed to him calculated only to aggravate it. The application of brute force might conquer a mob or stifle a riot, but it would leave unquenched fires of animosity. A violent operation may be necessary to remove a malignant growth. It may be the only possible cure; but no physician would hope to cure typhoid fever by knocking the patient insensible with a club. True, the delirium would cease for a time, but the deep-seated ailment would remain and the patient only be the worse for the treatment…. Here the disease was disagreement, misunderstanding, suspicion, bitterness of heart between employer and employees. Neither hired strike breaker nor policeman's baton could get to the root of it…. Yet he, Bonbright Foote VII, was the man held out to all the world as favoring this treatment, as authorizing it, as ordering it!
He walked quite around the block, approaching again on a side street that brought him back again just ahead of the police. This street was blocked by excited, restless, crowding, jeering men, but Bonbright wormed his way through and climbed upon a porch from which he could see over the heads of the foremost to where a line of police and the front rank of strikers faced each other across a vacant space of pavement, the square at the intersection of the streets.
Behind him a hatless man in a high state of excitement was making an inflammatory speech from a doorstep. He was urging the mob to charge the police, to trample them under…. Bonbright leaned far over the railing so he could look down the street where the main body of the mob was assembled. There was another speaker. Bonbright recognized Dulac—and Dulac, with all his eloquence, was urging the men to disperse to their homes in quiet. Bonbright listened. The man was talking sense! He was pointing out the folly of mob violence! He was showing them that it achieved nothing…. But the mob was beyond the control of wise counsel. Possibly the feet of many had pressed brass rails while elbows crooked. Certainly there was present a leaven of toughs, idlers, in no way connected with the business, but sent by the devil to add to the horror of it.
One of these, discreetly distant from the front, hurled half a brick into the line of police. It was a vicious suggestion. Other bricks and missiles followed, while the crowd surged forward. Suddenly the line of patrolmen opened to let through a squad of mounted police, who charged the mob…. It was a thing requiring courage, but a thing ordered by an imbecile.
Horses and men plunged into that dammed river of men…. It was a scene Bonbright could never erase from his memory, yet never could have described. It was a nightmare, a sensation of dread rather than a scene of fierce, implacable action.
The police drew back. The strikers hesitated…. Between them, on the square of pavement, lay quiet, or writhing in pain, half a dozen human forms…. Bonbright, his face colorless as those who lay below, stared at the bodies. For this that he saw he would be held responsible by the world….
He ran down the steps and began struggling through the mob. "Let me through…. Let me through," he panted.
He broke through to the front, not moved by reason, but quivering with the horror of the sight of men needlessly slain or maimed…. He must do something. He must stop it!
Then he Was recognized. "It's young Foote," a man shouted, and snatched at his shoulder. He shook the man off, but the cry was taken up. "It's Foote—young Foote…. Spying again."
Men sprang upon him, but he turned furiously and hurled them back. They must not stop him. He must not be interfered with, because he had to put an end to this thing. The mob surged about him, striking, threatening, so that he had to turn his face toward them, to strike out with his fists. More than one man went down under his blows before he could break away and run toward the police.
"See what you've done," he shouted in their faces. "This must stop." He advanced another step, as if to force the mounted officers to retreat.
"Grab him," ordered a sergeant.
Bonbright was promptly grabbed and hauled through the line of mounted police, to be thrown into the arms of waiting patrolmen. He fought as strength was given him to fight, but they carried him ungently and hurled him asprawl upon the floor of a patrol wagon, already well occupied by arrests from the mob.
"Git 'em to the station," the driver was ordered, and off lurched the patrol wagon.
That rapid ride brought cooling to Bonbright's head. He had made a fool of himself. He was ashamed, humiliated, and to be humiliated is no minor torture to a young man.
Instead of giving his name to the lieutenant on the desk he refused to give a name, and was entered as John Doe. It was his confused thought to save his family from publicity and disgrace…. So he knew what it was to have barred doors shut upon him, to be alone in a square cell whose only furnishing was a sort of bench across one end. He sank upon this apathetically and waited for what morning should bring.
The world owes no small part of its advancement to the reflections of men in jails.
Bonbright, alone in the darkness of his cell, was admirably situated for concentrated thought. All through the sleepless night he reviewed facts and theories and conditions. He reached few definite conclusions, and these more boyish than mature; he achieved to no satisfaction with himself. His one profound conclusion was that everything was wrong. Capital was wrong, labor was wrong; the whole basis upon which society is organized was wrong. It was an exceedingly sweeping conclusion, embracing EVERYTHING. He discerned no ray of light.
He studied his own conduct, but could convince himself of no voluntary wrongdoing. Yet he was in a cell…. In the beginning he had merely tried to understand something that aroused his curiosity—labor. From the point of view of capital, as represented by his father, this had been a sin. How or why it was a sin he could not comprehend…. Labor had been willing to be friendly, but now it hated him. Orders given in his name, but not originating in his will, had caused this. His attitude became fatalistic—he was being moved about by a ruthless hand without regard to his own volition. He might as well close his eyes and his mind and submit, for Bonbright Foote VII did not exist as a rational human individual, but only as a checker on the board, to be moved from square to square with such success or error as the player possessed.
Last night…. He had been mishandled by the employees of capital and the guardians of society; he had been mobbed by labor. He resented the guard and the police, but could not resent the mobbing. … He seemed to be dangling between two worlds, mishandled by either that he approached. But one fact he realized—labor would have none of him. His father had seen to that. There was no place for him to go but into the refuge of capital, and so to become an enemy to labor against which he had no quarrel…. This night set him more deeply in the Bonbright Foote groove. There was nothing for him now but complete submission, apathetic submission.
If it must be so, it must be so. He would let the family current bear him on. He would be but another Bonbright Foote, differentiated from the others only by a numeral to designate his generation.
Singularly, his own immediate problem did not present itself insistently until daylight began to penetrate the murk of the cell. What would the authorities do with him? How was he to get his liberty? Would the thing become public? He felt his helplessness, his inadequacy. He could not ask his father to help him, for he did not want his father ever to know what had happened the night before, yet he must have help from some one. Suddenly the name of Malcolm Lightener occurred to him.
After a time the doorman appeared with breakfast.
"Can I send a message?" asked Bonbright.
The doorman scrutinized him, saw he was no bum of the streets, but quite evidently a gentleman in temporary difficulty.
"Maybe," he said, grudgingly. "Gimme the message and I'll see."
"Please telephone Mr. Malcolm Lightener that the younger of the gentlemen he called on last evening is here and would like to see him."
"Malcolm Lightener, the automobile feller?"
"Yes."
"Friend of your'n?"
"Yes."
"Um!…" The doorman disappeared to return presently with the lieutenant.
"What's this about Malcolm Lightener?" the officer asked.
"I gave the man here a message for him," said Bonbright.
"Is it on the level? You know Lightener?"
"Yes," said Bonbright, impatiently.
"Then what the devil did you stay here all night for? Why didn't you have him notified last night? Looks darn fishy to me."
"It will do no harm to deliver my message," said Bonbright.
"Huh!… Let him out." The doorman swung wide the barred door and the lieutenant motioned Bonbright out. "Come and set in the office," he said. "Maybe you'd rather telephone yourself?"
"If I might," said Bonbright, amazed at the potency of Lightener's name to open cell doors and command the courtesy of the police. It was his first encounter with Influence.
He was conducted into a small office; then the lieutenant retired discreetly and shut the door. Bonbright made his call and asked for speech with Malcolm Lightener.
"Hello!… Hello!" came Lightener's gruff voice. "What is it?"
"This is Bonbright Foote…. I'm locked up in the Central Station. I wonder if you can't help me somehow?"
There was a moment's silence; then Bonbright heard a remark not intended for his ears but expressive of Lightener's astonishment, "Well, I'm DARNED!" Then: "I'll be right there. Hold the fort."
Bonbright opened the door and said to the lieutenant, "Mr. Lightener's on his way down."
"Um!… Make yourself comfortable. Say, was that breakfast all right?Find cigars in that top drawer." The magic of Influence!
In twenty minutes Lightener's huge form pushed through the station door. "Morning, Lieutenant. Got a friend of mine here?"
"Didn't know he was a friend of yours, Mr. Lightener. He wouldn't give his name, and never asked to have you notified till this morning…. He's in my office there."
Lightener strode into the room and shut the door.
"Well?" he demanded.
Breathlessly, almost without pause, Bonbright poured upon him an account of last night's happenings, making no concealments, unconsciously giving Lightener glimpses into his heart that made the big man bend his brows ominously. The boy did not explain; did not mention accusingly his father, but Lightener understood perfectly what the process of molding Bonbright was being subjected to. He made no comment.
"I don't want father to know this," Bonbright said. "If it can be kept out of the papers…. Father wouldn't understand. He'd feel I had disgraced the family."
"Doggone the family," snapped Lightener. "Come on."
Bonbright followed him out.
"May I take him along, Lieutenant? I'll fix it with the judge if necessary…. And say, happen to recognize him?"
"Never saw him before."
"If any of the newspaper boys come snoopin' around, you never saw me, either. Much obliged, Lieutenant."
"You're welcome, Mr. Lightener. Glad I kin accommodate you."
Lightener pushed Bonbright into his limousine. "You don't want to go home, I guess. We'll go to my house. Mother'll see you get breakfast. … Then we'll have a talk…. Here's a paper boy; let's see what's doing."
It was the morning penny paper that Lightener bought, the paper with leanings toward the proletariat, the veiled champion of labor. He bought it daily.
"Huh!" he grunted, as he scanned the first page. "They kind of allude to you."
Bonbright looked. He saw a two-column head:
The next pyramid contained his name; the story related how he had rushed frantically to the police after they had barbarously charged a harmless gathering of workingmen, trampling and maiming half a dozen, and had demanded that they charge again. It was a long story, with infinite detail, crucifying him with cheap ink; making him appear a ruthless, heartless monster, lusting for the spilled blood of the innocent.
Bonbright looked up to meet Lightener's eyes.
"It—it isn't fair," he said, chokingly.
"Fairness," said Lightener, almost with gentleness, "is expected only when we are young."
"But I didn't…. I tried to stop them."
"Don't try to tell anybody so—you won't be believed."
"I'm going to tell somebody," said Bonbright, his mind flashing to RuthFrazer, "and I'm going to be believed. I've got to be believed."
After a while he said: "I wasn't taking sides. I just went there to see. If I've got to hire men all my life I want to understand them."
"You've got to take sides, son. There's no straddling the fence in this world…. And as soon as you've taken sides your own side is all you'll understand. Nobody ever understood the other side."
"But can't there ever be an understanding? Won't capital ever understand labor, or labor capital?"
"I suppose a philosopher would say there is no difference upon which agreement can't be reached; that there must somewhere be a common meeting ground…. The Bible says the lion shall lie down with the lamb, but I don't expect to live to see him do it without worrying some about the lion's teeth."
"It's one man holding power over other men," said Bonbright.
As the car stopped at Malcolm Lightener's door, sudden panic seizedBonbright.
"I ought not to come here," he said, "after last night. Mrs.Lightener… your daughter."
"I'll bet Hilda's worrying you more than her mother. Nonsense! They both got sense."
Certainly Mrs. Lightener had.
"Just got him out of the police station," her husband said as he led the uncomfortable Bonbright into her presence. "Been shut up all night…. Rioting—that's what he's been doing. Throwing stones at the cops."
Mrs. Lightener looked at Bonbright's pale, weary, worried face. "You let him be, Malcolm…. Never mind HIM," she said to the boy. "You just go right upstairs with him. A warm bath and breakfast are what you need. You don't look as if you'd slept a WINK."
"I haven't," he confessed.
When Bonbright emerged from the bath he found the motherly woman had sent out to the haberdashers for fresh shirt, collar, and tie. He donned them with the first surge of genuine gratefulness he had ever known. Of course he had said thank you prettily, and had thought he felt thanks…. Now he knew he had not.
"Guess you won't be afraid to face Hilda now," said Lightener, entering the room. "I notice a soiled collar is worn with a heap more misgiving than a soiled conscience…. Grapefruit, two soft-boiled eggs, toast, coffee…. Some prescription."
Hilda was in the library, and greeted him as though it were an ordinary occurrence to have a young man just out of the cell block as a breakfast guest. She did not refer to it, nor did her father at the moment. Bonbright was grateful again.
After breakfast the boy and girl were left alone in the library, briefly.
"I'm ashamed," said Bonbright, chokingly.
"You needn't be," she said. "Dad told us all about it. I thought the other night I should like you. Now I'm sure of it." She owned her father's directness.
"You're good," he said.
"No—reasonable," she answered.
He sat silent, thinking. "Do you know," he said, presently, "what a lot girls have to do with making a fellow's life endurable?… Since I went to work I—I've felt really GOOD only twice. Both times it was a girl. The other one just grinned at me when I was feeling down on my luck. It was a dandy grin…. And now you…"
"Tell me about her," she said.
"She's my secretary now. Little bit of a thing, but she grins at all the world… Socialist, too, or anarchist or something. I made them give her to me for my secretary so I could see her grin once in a while."
"I'd like to see her."
"I don't know her," said Bonbright. "She's just my secretary. I'll bet she'd be bully to know."
Hilda Lightener would not have been a woman had she not wondered about this girl who had made such an impression on Bonbright. It was not that she sensed a possible rival. She had not interested herself in Bonbright to the point where a rival could matter. But—she would like to see that girl.
Malcolm Lightener re-entered the room.
"Clear out, honey," he said to his daughter. "Foote and I have got to make medicine."
She arose. "If he rumbles like a volcano," she said to Bonbright, "don't be afraid. He just rumbles. Pompeii is in no danger."
"You GIT," her father said.
"Now," he said when they were alone, "what's to pay?"
"I don't know."
"Will your father raise the devil? Maybe you'd like to have me go along when you interview him."
"I think I'd rather not."
Lightener nodded with satisfaction.
"Well, then—I've kind of taken a shine to you. You're a young idiot, all right, but there's something about you…. Let's start off with this: You've got something that's apt to get you into hot water. Either it's fool curiosity or genuine interest in folks. I don't know which. Neither fits into the Bonbright Foote formula. Six generations of 'em seem to have been whittled off the same chip—and then the knife slipped and you came off some other chip altogether. But the Foote chip don't know it, and won't recognize it if it does…. I'm not going to criticize your father or your ancestors, whatever kind of darn fools I may personally think they are. What I want to say is, if you ever kick over the traces, drop in and tell me about it. I'll see you on your road."
"Thanks," said Bonbright, not half comprehending.
"You can't keep on pressing men out of the same mold forever. Maybe you can get two or three or a dozen to be as like as peas—and then nature plays a joke on you. You're the joke on the Foote mold, I reckon. Maybe they can squeeze you into the form and maybe they can't…. But whatever happens is going to be darn unpleasant for you."
Bonbright nodded. THAT he knew well.
"You've got a choice. You can start in by kicking over the traces—with the mischief to pay; or you can let the vanished Footes take a crack at you to see what that can make of you. I advise no boy to run against his father's wishes. But everybody starts out with something in him that's his own—individual—peculiar to him. Maybe it's what the preachers call his soul. Anyhow, it's HIS. Whatever they do to you, try to hang on to it. Don't let anybody pump it out of you and fill its room with a standardized solution. Get me?"
"I think so."
"I guess that's about, all from me. Now run along to your dad. Got any idea what will happen?"
Bonbright studied the rug more than a minute before he answered.
"I think I was right last night. Maybe I didn't go about it the way I should, but I INTENDED right. At least I didn't intend WRONG. Father will be—displeased. I don't think I can explain it to him… "
"Uh!" grunted Lightener.
"So I—I guess I sha'n't try," Bonbright ended. "I think I'll go along and have it over with."
When he was gone Malcolm Lightener made the following remark to his wife, who seemed to understand it perfectly:
"Some sons get born into the wrong families."
Bonbright entered his office with the sensations of a detected juvenile culprit approaching an unavoidable reckoning. If there was a ray of brightness in the whole episode it was that the newspapers had miraculously been denied the meatiest bit of his night's adventure—his detention in a cell. If that had been flaunted before the eyes of the public Bonbright felt he would never have been able to face his father.
He was vividly aware of the stir his entrance caused among the office employees. It was as though the heart of the office skipped a beat. He flushed, and, with eyes straight before him, hurried into his own room and sat in his chair. He experienced a quivering, electric emptiness—his nerves crying out against an approaching climax. It was blood-relative to panic.
Presently he was aware that his father stood in the door scrutinizing him. Bonbright's eyes encountered his father's. They seemed to lock … In that tense moment the boy was curiously aware how perfectly his father's physical presence stood for and expressed his theory of being. Tall, unbending, slender, aristocratic, intellectual—the pose of the body, the poise of the head, even that peculiar, slanting set of the lips expressed perfectly the Bonbright Foote idea. Five generations had bred him to be the perfect thing it desired.
"Well, sir," he said, coldly. Bonbright arose. There was a formality about the situation which seemed to require it. "Good morning," he said, in a low tone.
"I have seen the papers."
"Yes, sir."
"What they printed was in substance true?"
"I prefer not—to discuss it, sir."
"AndIprefer TO discuss it… Do you fancy you can drag the name of Foote through the daily press as though it were that of some dancing girl or political mountebank, and have no reference made of it? Tell me exactly what happened last night—and why it was permitted to happen."
"Father—" Bonbright's voice was scarcely audible, yet it was alive and quivering with pain. "I cannot talk to you about last night."
The older man's lips compressed. "You are a man grown—are supposed to be a man grown. Must I cross-examine you as if you were a sulking schoolboy?"
Bonbright was not defiant, not sulkily stubborn. His night's experiences had affected, were affecting him, working far-reaching changes in him, maturing him. But he was too close to them for their effect to have been accomplished. The work was going on each moment, each hour. He did not reply to his father immediately, but when he did so it was with a certain decision, a firmness, a lack of the old boyishness which was marked and distinct.
"You must not cross-question me. There are things about which one's own father has not the right to ask…. If I could have come to you voluntarily—but I could not. In college I have seen fellows get into trouble, and the first thing they thought of was to go to their fathers with it… It was queer. What happened last night happened to ME. Possibly it will have some effect on my family and on the name of Foote, as you say… But it happened to ME. Nobody else can understand it. No one has the right to ask about it."
"It happened to YOU! Young man, you are the seventh Bonbright Foote—member of a FAMILY. What happens to you happens to it. You cannot separate yourself from it. You, as an individual, are not important, but as Bonbright Foote VII you become important. Do you imagine you can act and think as an entity distinct from Bonbright Foote, Incorporated?… Nonsense. You are but one part of a whole; what you do affects the whole, and you are responsible for it to the shops."
"A man must be responsible to himself," said Bonbright, fumbling to express what was troubling his soul. "There are bigger things than family…"
His father had advanced to the desk. Now he interrupted by bringing his hand down upon it masterfully. "For you there is no bigger thing than family. You have a strange idea. Where did you get it? Is this sort of thing being taught in college to-day? I suppose you have some notion of asserting your individuality. Bosh! Men in your position, born as you have been born, have no right to individuality. Your individuality must express the individuality of your family as mine has done, and as my father's and HIS father's did before me… I insist that you explain fully to me what occurred last night."
"I am sorry, sir, but I cannot."
There was no outburst of passion from the father; it would have been wholly out of keeping with his character. Bonbright Foote VI was a strong man in his way; he possessed force of character—even if that force were merely a standardized, family-molded force of character. He recognized a crisis in the affairs of the Foote family which must be met wisely. He perceived that results could not be obtained through the violent impact of will; that here was a dangerous condition which must be cured—but not by seizing it and wrenching it into place… Perhaps he could make Bonbright obey him, but if matters were as serious as they seemed, it would be far from wise. The thing must be dealt with patiently, firmly. Here was only a symptom; the disease went deeper. For six generations one Bonbright Foote after another had been born true to tradition's form—the seventh generation had gone askew! It must be set right, remolded.
"Let me point out to you," said he, "that you are here only because you are my son and the descendant of our forefathers. Aside from that you have no right to consideration or to position. You possess wealth. You are a personage… Suppose it were necessary to deprive you of these things. Suppose, as I have the authority to do, I should send you out of this office to earn your own living. Suppose, in short, I should find it necessary to do as other fathers have done—to disown you… What then? What could you do? What would your individuality be worth?… Think it over, my son. In the meantime we will postpone this matter until you revise your mood."
He turned abruptly and went into his own room. He wanted to consider. He did not know how to conduct himself, nor how to handle this distressing affair… He fancied he was acting wisely and diplomatically, but at the same time he carried away with him the unpleasant consciousness that victory lay for the moment with his son. Individuality was briefly triumphant. One thing was clear to him—it should not remain so. The Bonbright Foote tradition should be continued correctly by his son. This was not so much a determination as a state of mind. It was a thing of inevitability.
Bonbright's feeling as his father left him was one of utter helplessness, of futility. He had received his father's unveiled threat and later it would have its effect. For the moment it passed without consideration. First in his mind was the fact that he did not know what to do—did not even know what he WANTED to do. All he could see was the groove he was in, the family groove. He did not like it, but he was not sure he wanted to be out of it. His father had talked of individuality; Bonbright did not know if he wanted to assert his individuality. He was at sea. Unrest grappled with him blindly, urging him nowhere, seeming merely to wrestle with him aimlessly and maliciously… What was it all about, anyhow? Why was he mixed up in the struggle? Why could not he be left alone in quiet? If he had owned a definite purpose, a definite ambition, a describable desire, it would have been different, but he had none. He was merely bitterly uncomfortable without the slightest notion what event or course of action could bring him comfort.
One thought persisted through the chaos of his surging thoughts. He must call in Ruth Frazer and explain to her that he had not done what the papers said he did. Somehow he felt he owed her explanation, her of all the world.
She entered in response to the button he pushed, but there was not the broad smile—the grin—he looked up eagerly to see. She was grave, rather more than grave—she was troubled, so troubled that she did not raise her eyes to look at him, but took her seat opposite him and laid her dictation book on the desk.
"Miss Frazer—" he said, and at his tone she looked at him. He seemed very young to her, yet older than he had appeared before. Older he was, with a tired, haggard look left by his sleepless night. She could not restrain her heart from softening toward him, for he was such a boy—just a boy.
"Miss Frazer," he said again, "I want to—talk to you about last night—about what the papers said."
If he expected help from her he was disappointed. Her lips set visibly.
"It was not true—what they said… I sha'n't explain it to anybody else. What good could it do? But I want you to understand. It seems as if I HAVE to explain to you…. I can't have you believing—"
"I didn't read it in the papers," she said. "I heard from an eyewitness.
"Mr. Dulac," he said. "Yes, he would have seen. Even to him it might have looked that way—it might. But I didn't—I didn't! You must believe me. I did not run to the police to have them charge the strikers again… Why should I?"
"Why should you?" she repeated, coldly.
"Let me tell you… I went there—out of curiosity, I guess. This whole strike came so suddenly. I don't understand why strikes and troubles like this must be, and I thought I might find out something if I went and watched… I wasn't taking sides. I don't know who is right and who is wrong. All I wanted was to learn. One thing… I don't blame the strikers for throwing bricks. I could have thrown a brick at one of our guards; a policeman shoved me and I could have thrown a brick at him…. I suppose, if there are to be strikes and mobs who want to destroy our property, that we must have guards and police… But they shouldn't aggravate things. I went around where I could see—and I saw the police charge. I saw them send their horses smashing into that crowd—and I saw them draw back, leaving men on the pavement,… There was one who writhed about and made horrible sounds!… The mob was against us and the police were for us—but I couldn't stand it. I guess I lost my head. I hadn't the least intention of doing what I did, or of doing anything but watch… but I lost my head. I did rush up to the police, Miss Frazer, and the strikers tried to mob me. I was struck more than once… It wasn't to tell the police to charge. You must believe me—you MUST…. I was afraid they WOULD charge again, so I rushed at them. All I remember distinctly is shouting to them that they mustn't do it again—mustn't charge into that defenseless mob…. It was horrible." He paused, and shut his eyes as though to blot out a picture painted on his mind. Then he spoke more calmly. "The police didn't understand, either. They thought I belonged to the mob, and they arrested me…. I slept—I spent the night in a cell in Police Headquarters."
Ruth was leaning over the desk toward him, eyes wide, lips parted. "Is—is that the TRUTH?" she asked; but as she asked she knew it was so. Then: "I'm sorry—so sorry. You must let me tell Mr. Dulac and he will tell the men. It would be terrible if they kept on believing what they believe now. They think you are—"
"I know," he said, wearily. "It can't be helped. I don't know that it matters. What they think about me is what—it is thought best for them to think. I am supposed to be fighting the strike."
"But aren't you?"
"I suppose so. It's the job that's been assigned to me—but I'm doing nothing. I'm of no consequence—just a stuffed figure."
"You caused the strike."
"I?" There was genuine surprise in his voice. "How?"
"With that placard."
"I suppose so," he said, slowly. "My name WAS signed to it, wasn't it?… You see I had been indiscreet the night before. I had mingled with the men and spoken to Mr. Dulac…. I had created a false impression—which had to be torn up—by the roots."
"I don't understand, Mr. Foote."
"No," he said, "of course not…. Why should you? I don't understand myself. I don't see why I shouldn't talk to Mr. Dulac or the men. I don't see why I shouldn't try to find out about things. But it wasn't considered right—was considered very wrong, and I was—disciplined. Members of my family don't do those things. Mind, I'm not complaining. I'm not criticizing father, for he may be right. Probably he IS right. But he didn't understand. I wasn't siding with the men; I was just trying to find out…"
"Do you mean," she asked, a bit breathlessly, "that you have done none of these things of your own will—because you wanted to? I mean the placard, and bringing in O'Hagan and his strike breakers, and taking all these ruthless methods to break the strike?… Were you made to APPEAR as though it was you—when it wasn't?"
"Don't YOU misunderstand me, Miss Frazer. You're on the other side—with the men. I'm against them. I'm Bonbright Foote VII." There was a trace of bitterness in his voice as he said it, and it did not escape her attention. "I wasn't taking sides…. I wouldn't take sides now—but apparently I must…. If strikes are necessary then I suppose fellows in places like mine must fight them…. I don't know. I don't see any other way…. But it doesn't seem right—that there should be strikes. There must be a reason for them. Either our side does something it shouldn't—and provokes them, or your side is unfair and brings them on…. Or maybe both of us are to blame…. I wanted to find out."
"I shall tell Mr. Dulac," she said. "I shall tell him EVERYTHING. The men mustn't go on hating and despising you. Why, they ought to be sorry for you!… Why do you endure it? Why don't you walk out of this place and never enter it again?…"
"You don't understand," he said, with perplexity." I knew you would think I am siding with the men."
"I don't think that—no!… You might come to side with us—because we're right. But you're not siding with yourself. You're letting somebody else operate your very soul—and that's a worse sin than suicide…. You're letting your father and this business, this Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, wipe you out as if you were a mark on a slate—and make another mark in your place to suit its own plans. … You are being treated abominably."
"Miss Frazer, I guess neither of us understands this thing. You see this business, for generations, has had a certain kind of man at the head of it. Always. It has been a successful business. Maybe when father, and his father, were young, they had to be disciplined as I am being. Maybe it is RIGHT—what I have heard called TRAINING."
"Do you like it?"
He did not answer at once. "I—it disturbs me. It makes me uneasy. … But I can do nothing. They've got me in the groove, and I suppose I'll move along it."
"If you would own up to it, you're unhappy. You're being made miserable…. Why, you're being treated worse than the strikers—and by your own father!… Everybody has a right to be himself."
"You say that, but father and the generations of Footes before him say the exact opposite…. However, I'm not the question. All I wanted to do was to explain to you about last night. You believe me?"
"Of course. And I shall tell—"
He shook his head. "I'd rather you didn't. Indeed, you mustn't. As long as I am here I must stick by my family. Don't you see? I wanted YOU to know. My explanation was for you alone."
Rangar appeared in the door—quietly as it was his wont to move."Pardon," he said. "Your father wishes to speak to you, Mr. Foote."
"One moment, Miss Frazer. I have some letters," Bonbright said, and stepped into his father's office.
"Bonbright," said his father, "Rangar has just discovered that your secretary—this Miss Frazer—lives in the same house with Dulac the strike leader…. She comes of a family of disturbers herself. Probably she is very useful to Dulac where she is. Therefore you will dismiss her at once."
"But, father—"
"You will dismiss her at once—personally."
A second time that day the eyes of father and son locked.
Bonbright's face was colorless; he felt his lips tremble.
"At once," said his father, tapping his desk with his finger.
Bonbright's sensation was akin to that of falling through space—there seemed nothing to cling to, nothing by which to sustain himself. How utterly futile he was was borne in upon him! He could not resist. Protestation would only humiliate him. He turned slowly and walked into his own room, where he stood erect before his desk.
"Miss Frazer," he said in a level, timbreless voice, "the labor leaderDulac lives in your house. You come of a family of labor agitators.Therefore you are discharged."
"WHAT?" she exclaimed, the unexpectedness of it upsetting her poise.
"You are discharged," he repeated; and then, turning his back on her, he walked to the window, where he stood tense, tortured by humiliation, gazing down upon a street which he could not see.
Ruth gathered her book and pencils and stood up. She moved slowly to the door without speaking, but there she stopped, turned, and looked at Bonbright. There was neither dismay nor anger in her eyes—only sympathy. But she did not speak it aloud. "Poor boy!" she whispered to herself, and stepped out into the corridor.