Page:The Mystery of Central Park.djvu/86

80 Gilbert, the beggar, who occupied the room in the rear of that occupied by the Williamses.

Monday morning the girls all gathered around the entrance to the factory and urged the new girls, who came in answer to an advertisement, not to apply for work and thereby injure their chances of making the strike successful.

Only the foreigners stubbornly refused the girls' request, and they applied for and received the work which the others had abandoned. Tuesday more foreigners were given work, and the weaker strikers, getting frightened at this, quitted their companions and returned to the factory.

This so enraged the other strikers that they waited for the deserters in the evening, when they were going home from work. They first tried to persuade their weaker companions to reconsider their decision and somehow the argument ended in a fight.