Page:Stanwood Pier--The ancient grudge.djvu/324

Rh of the business will go to pay the interest on the bonds, and the stock is worthless, and after you have taken your share of it off the hands of the promoters—will you get any dividends?—Will the price go above the price you paid? No; you're sold into slavery—and you're stripped before you're sold!"

"Stop!" shouted Colonel Halket, turning upon him with a sudden, surprising vigor. "You—you—dare!"

Breath and words together failed him; he stood gasping, shaking a clenched fist at Tustin. Floyd had started forward at the moment of his grandfather's interruption; now he sprang upon the platform and stepped abruptly between Colonel Halket and the labor leader. He took his grandfather's trembling arm and held it in a firm yet gentle grasp; Tustin stood silent, sneering at him.

Floyd faced the audience.

"Gentlemen, this meeting is at an end," he said in a clear, decisive voice.

"Keep your seats!" Tustin commanded, holding the audience down with a gesture of both hands. "I've got more to say."

He moved toward Floyd and Colonel Halket. Floyd turned his back upon him and tried to lead his grandfather from the platform, but the old man threw Floyd's hand off impatiently.

"You talk to us, Colonel Halket, about our liberty. We've got our liberty and we mean to keep it. We don't propose to risk it selling ourselves to a corporation. We're afraid of that corporation of yours, Colonel Halket. We're afraid that the first move it would make would be against the source of all our liberty—which is not you, Colonel Halket, but the union. We believe that you and the other men with you are organizing your scheme to crush out the union—the thing that makes it possible for me to talk to you as I am talking now without fear of the consequences—the thing that has at last enabled the laboring-man to talk to the employer as the