with mutiny in the stoke-hold; I've changed the laws of labour,
politics and municipal economies. I went out of God's country right
into the heart of the decayin' East, and by the application of a
runnin' noose in a hemp rope I strangled oppression and put eight
thousand men to work." He paused ponderously. "I'm an Arbitrator!"

"The deuce you are," indignantly cried "Reddy" the cook. "Who says
so?"

"Reddy" isn't up in syntax, and his unreasoning loyalty to Billings
is an established fact of such standing that his remarks afford no
conjecture.

"Yes, I've cut into the 'Nation's Peril' and the 'Cryin' Evil' good
and strong--walkin' out from the stinks of the Union Stock Yards, of
Chicago, into the limelight of publicity, via the 'drunk and
disorderly' route.

"You see I got those ten carloads of steers into the city all right,
but I was so blame busy splatterin' through the tracked-up wastes of
the cow pens, an' inhalin' the sewer gas of the west side that I
never got to see a newspaper. If I'd 'a' read one, here's what I'd
'a' found, namely: The greatest, stubbornest, riotin'est strike ever
known, which means a heap for Chicago, she being the wet-nurse of
labour trouble.

"The whole river front was tied up. Nary a steamer had whistled
inside the six-mile crib for two weeks, and eight thousand men was
out. There was hold-ups and blood-sheddin' and picketin', which last
is an alias for assault with intents, and altogether it was a prime