LITMIR.BIZ

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and ineffective before him, a tawdry disorderly dwelling for millions of men, built not for the making of men but for the making of millions by a few odd meat-packers and drygoods merchants.

      With a slight lifting of his great shoulders McGregor sensed these things although he could not have expressed his sense of them and the hatred and contempt of men, born of his youth in the mining town, was rekindled by the sight of city men wandering afraid and bewildered through the streets of their own city.

      Knowing nothing of the customs of the unemployed McGregor did not walk the streets looking for signs marked “Men Wanted.” He did not sit on park benches studying want advertisements, the want advertisements that so often proved but bait put out by suave men up dirty stairways to glean the last few pennies from pockets of the needy. Going along the street he swung his great body through the doorways leading to the offices of factories. When some pert young man tried to stop him he did not say words but drew back his fist threateningly and, glowering, walked in. The young men at the doors of factories looked at his blue eyes and let him pass unchallenged.

      In the afternoon of his first day of seeking Beaut got a place in an apple warehouse on the North Side, the third place offered him during the day and the one that he accepted. The chance came to him through an exhibition of strength. Two men, old and bent, struggled to get a barrel of apples from the sidewalk up to a platform that ran waist high along the front of the warehouse. The barrel had rolled to the sidewalk from a truck standing in the gutter. The driver of the truck stood with his hands on his hips, laughing. A German with blond hair stood upon the platform swearing in broken English. McGregor stood upon the sidewalk and looked at the two men who were struggling with the barrel. A feeling of immense contempt for their feebleness shone in his eyes. Pushing them aside he grasped the barrel and with a great heave sent it up onto the platform and spinning through an open doorway into the receiving room of the warehouse. The two workmen stood on the sidewalk smiling sheepishly. Across the street a group of city firemen who lounged in the sun before an engine house clapped their hands. The truck driver turned and prepared to send another barrel along the plank extending from the truck across the sidewalk to the warehouse platform. At a window in the upper part of the warehouse a grey head protruded and a sharp voice called down to the tall German. “Hey Frank, hire that ‘husky’ and let about six of the dead ones you’ve got around here go home.”

      McGregor jumped upon the platform and walked in at the warehouse door. The German followed, inventorying the size of the red-haired giant with something like disapproval. His look seemed to say, “I like strong fellows but you’re too strong.” He took the discomfiture of the two feeble workmen on the sidewalk as in some way reflecting upon himself. The two men stood in the receiving room and looked at each other. A bystander might have thought them preparing to fight.

      And then a freight elevator came slowly down from the upper part of the warehouse and from it jumped a small grey-haired man with a yard stick in his hand. He had a sharp restless eye and a short stubby grey beard. Striking the floor with a bound he began to talk. “We pay two dollars for nine hours’ work here—begin at seven, quit at five. Will you come?” Without waiting for an answer he turned to the German. “Tell those two old ‘rummies’ to get their time and get out of here,” he said, turning again and looking expectantly at McGregor.

      McGregor liked the quick little man and grinned with approval of his decisiveness. He nodded his assent to the proposal and, looking at the German, laughed. The little man disappeared through a door leading to an office and McGregor walked out into the street. At a corner he turned and saw the German standing on the platform before the warehouse looking after him. “He is wondering whether or not he can whip me,” thought McGregor.

      In the apple warehouse McGregor worked for three years, rising during his second year to be foreman and replacing the tall German. The German expected trouble with McGregor and was determined to make short work of him. He had been offended by the action of the gray-haired superintendent in hiring the man and felt that a prerogative belonging to himself had been ignored. All day he followed McGregor with his eyes, trying to calculate the strength and courage in the huge body. He knew that hundreds of hungry men walked the streets and in the end decided that the need of work if not the spirit of the man would make him submissive. During the second week he put the question that burned in his brain to the test. He followed McGregor into a dimly-lighted upper room where barrels of apples, piled to the ceiling, left only narrow ways for passage. Standing in the semi-darkness he shouted, calling the man who worked among the apple barrels a foul name, “I won’t have you loafing in there, you red-haired bastard,” he shouted.

      McGregor said nothing. He was not offended by the vileness of the name the German had called him and took it merely as a challenge that he had been expecting and that he meant to accept. With a grim smile on his lips he walked toward the German and when but one apple barrel lay between them reached across and dragged the foreman sputtering and swearing down the passageway to a window at the end of the room. By the window he stopped and putting his hand to the throat of the struggling man began to choke him into submission. Blows fell on his face and body. Struggling terribly the German kicked McGregor’s legs with desperate energy. Although his ears rang with the hammer-like blows that fell about his neck and cheeks McGregor stool silent under the storm. His blue eyes gleamed with hatred and the muscles of his great arms danced in the light from the window. As he looked into the protruding eyes of the writhing German he thought of fat Reverend Minot Weeks of Coal Creek and added an extra twitch to the flesh between his fingers. When a gesture of submission came from the man against the wall he stepped back and let go his grip. The German dropped to the floor. Standing over him McGregor delivered his ultimatum. “You report this or try to get me fired and I’ll kill you outright,” he said. “I’m going to stay here on this job until I get ready to leave it. You can tell me what to do and how to do it but when you speak to me again say ‘McGregor’—Mr. McGregor, that’s my name.”

      The German got to his feet and began walking down the passageway between the rows of piled barrels. As he went he helped himself along with his hands. McGregor went back to work. After the retreating form of the German he shouted, “Get a new place when you can Dutch, I’ll be taking this job away from you when I’m ready for it.”

      That evening as McGregor walked to the car he saw the little grey-haired superintendent standing waiting for him before a saloon. The man made a sign and McGregor walked across and stood beside him. They went together into the saloon and stood leaning against the bar and looked at each other. A smile played about the lips of the little man. “What have you been doing to Frank?” he asked.

      McGregor turned to the bartender who stood waiting before him. He thought that the superintendent intended to try to patronise him by buying him a drink and he did not like the thought. “What will you have? I’ll take a cigar for mine,” he said quickly, defeating the superintendent’s plan by being the first to speak. When the bartender brought the cigars McGregor paid for them and walked out at the door. He felt like one playing a game. “If Frank meant to bully me into submission this man also means something.”

      On the sidewalk before the saloon McGregor stopped. “Look here,” he said, turning and facing the superintendent, “I’m after Frank’s place. I’m going to learn the business as fast as I can. I won’t put it up to you to fire him. When I get ready for the place he won’t be there.”

      A light flashed into the eyes of the little man. He held the cigar McGregor had paid for as though about to throw it into the street. “How far do you think you can go with your big fists?” he asked, his voice rising.

      McGregor smiled. He thought he had earned another victory and lighting his cigar held the burning match before the little man. “Brains are intended to help fists,” he said, “I’ve got both.”

      The superintendent looked at the burning match and at the cigar between his fingers. “If I don’t which will you use on me?” he asked.

      McGregor threw the match into the street. “Aw! don’t bother asking,” he said, holding out another match.

      McGregor and the superintendent walked along the street. “I would like to fire you but I won’t. Some day you’ll run that warehouse like a clock,” said the superintendent.

      McGregor

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