“You don’t approve, then, of the citizens holding meetings?”
“I mean that we don’t consider it necessary to provide agitators with opportunity to incite our employees.”
“May I ask, Mr. Cartwright, are you speaking as mayor of an American community, or as superintendent of a coal-mine?”
Cartwright’s face had been growing continually redder. Addressing Edward’s back, he said, “I don’t see any reason why this should continue.”
And Edward was of the same opinion. He turned. “Really, Hal—”
“But, Edward! A man accuses your brother of being a lawbreaker! Have you hitherto known of any criminal tendencies in our family?”
Edward turned to the window again and resumed his study of the cinder-heaps and tomato-cans. It was a vulgar and stupid quarrel, but he had seen enough of Hal’s mood to realise that he would go on and on, so long as anyone was indiscreet enough to answer him.
“You say, Mr. Cartwright, that I have violated the ordinance against speaking on the street. May I ask what penalty this ordinance carries?”
“You will find out when the penalty is exacted of you.”
Hal laughed. “From what you said just now, I gather that the penalty is expulsion from the town! If I understand legal procedure, I should have been brought before the justice of the peace—who happens to be another company store-clerk. Instead of that, I am sentenced by the mayor—or is it the company superintendent? May I ask how that comes to be?”
“It is because of my consideration—”
“When did I ask consideration?”
“Consideration for your brother, I mean.”
“Oh! Then your ordinance provides that the mayor—or is it the superintendent?—may show consideration for the brother of a lawbreaker, by changing his penalty to expulsion from the town. Was it consideration for Tommie Burke that caused you to have his sister sent down the canyon?”
Cartwright clenched his hands. “I’ve had all I’ll stand of this!”
He was again addressing Edward’s back; and Edward turned and answered, “I don’t blame you, sir.” Then to Hal, “I really think you’ve said enough!”
“I hope I’ve said enough,” replied Hal—“to convince you that the pretence of American law in this coal-camp is a silly farce, an insult and a humiliation to any man who respects the institutions of his country.”
“You, Mr. Warner,” said the superintendent, to Edward, “have had experience in managing coal-mines. You know what it means to deal with ignorant foreigners, who have no understanding of American law—”
Hal burst out laughing. “So you’re teaching them American law! You’re teaching them by setting at naught every law of your town and state, every constitutional guarantee—and substituting the instructions you get by telegraph from Peter Harrigan!”
Cartwright turned and walked to the door. “Young man,” said he, over his shoulder, “it will be necessary for you to leave North Valley this morning. I only hope your brother will be able to persuade you to leave without trouble.” And the bang of the door behind him was the superintendent’s only farewell.
XVI
Edward turned upon his brother. “Now what the devil did you want to put me through a scene like that for? So undignified! So utterly uncalled for! A quarrel with a man so far beneath you!”
Hal stood where the superintendent had left him. He was looking at his brother’s angry face. “Was that all you got out of it, Edward?”
“All that stuff about your private character! What do you care what a fellow like Cartwright thinks about you?”
“I care nothing at all what he thinks, but I care about having him use such a slander. That’s one of their regular procedures, so Billy Keating says.”
Edward answered, coldly, “Take my advice, and realise that when you deny a scandal, you only give it circulation.”
“Of course,” answered Hal. “That’s what makes me so angry. Think of the girl, the harm done to her!”
“It’s not up to you to worry about the girl.”
“Suppose that Cartwright had slandered some woman friend of yours. Would you have felt the same indifference?”
“He’d not have slandered any friend of mine; I choose my friends more carefully.”
“Yes, of course. What that means is that you choose them among the rich. But I happen to be more democratic in my tastes—”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” cried Edward. “You reformers are all alike—you talk and talk and talk!”
“I can tell you the reason for that, Edward—a man like you can shut his eyes, but he can’t shut his ears!”
“Well, can’t you let up on me for awhile—long enough to get out of this place? I feel as if I were sitting on the top of a volcano, and I’ve no idea when it may break out again.”
Hal began to laugh. “All right,” he said; “I guess I haven’t shown much appreciation of your visit. I’ll be more sociable now. My next business is in Pedro, so I’ll go that far with you. There’s one thing more—”
“What is it?”
“The company owes me money—”
“What money?”
“Some I’ve earned.”
It was Edward’s turn to laugh. “Enough to buy you a shave and a bath?”
He took out his wallet, and pulled off several bills; and Hal, watching him, realised suddenly a change which had taken place in his own psychology. Not merely had he acquired the class-consciousness of the workingman, he had acquired the money-consciousness as well. He was actually concerned about the dollars the company owed him! He had earned those dollars by back- and heartbreaking toil, lifting lumps of coal into cars; the sum was enough to keep the whole Rafferty family alive for a week or two. And here was Edward, with a smooth brown leather wallet full of ten- and twenty-dollar bills, which he peeled off without counting, exactly as if money grew on trees, or as if coal came out of the earth and walked into furnaces to the sound of a fiddle and a flute!
Edward had of course no idea of these abnormal processes going on in his brother’s mind. He was holding out the bills. “Get yourself some decent things,” he said. “I hope you don’t have to
