South of the Slot

by Jack London

Old San Francisco, which is the San Francisco of only the otherday, the day before the Earthquake, was divided midway by the Slot.The Slot was an iron crack that ran along the centre of MarketStreet, and from the Slot arose the burr of the ceaseless, endlesscable that was hitched at will to the cars it dragged up and down.In truth, there were two slots, but in the quick grammar of theWest time was saved by calling them, and much more that they stoodfor, "The Slot." North of the Slot were the theatres, hotels, andshopping district, the banks and the staid, respectable businesshouses. South of the Slot were the factories, slums, laundries,machine-shops, boiler works, and the abodes of the working class.The Slot was the metaphor that expressed the class cleavage ofSociety, and no man crossed this metaphor, back and forth, moresuccessfully than Freddie Drummond. He made a practice of livingin both worlds, and in both worlds he lived signally well. FreddieDrummond was a professor in the Sociology Department of theUniversity of California, and it was as a professor of sociologythat he first crossed over the Slot, lived for six mouths in thegreat labour-ghetto, and wrote THE UNSKILLED LABOURER - a book thatwas hailed everywhere as an able contribution to the literature ofprogress, and as a splendid reply to the literature of discontent.Politically and economically it was nothing if not orthodox.Presidents of great railway systems bought whole editions of it togive to their employees. The Manufacturers' Association alonedistributed fifty thousand copies of it. In a way, it was almostas immoral as the far-famed and notorious MESSAGE TO GARCIA, whilein its pernicious preachment of thrift and content it ran MR. WIGGSOF THE CABBAGE PATCH a close second.At first, Freddie Drummond found it monstrously difficult to getalong among the working people. He was not used to their ways, andthey certainly were not used to his. They were suspicious. He hadno antecedents. He could talk of no previous jobs. His hands weresoft. His extraordinary politeness was ominous. His first idea ofthe role he would play was that of a free and independent Americanwho chose to work with his hands and no explanations given. But itwouldn't do, as he quickly discovered. At the beginning theyaccepted him, very provisionally, as a freak. A little later, ashe began to know his way about better, he insensibly drifted intothe role that would work - namely, he was a man who had seen betterdays, very much better days, but who was down on his luck, though,to be sure, only temporarily.He learned many things, and generalized much and often erroneously,all of which can be found in the pages of THE UNSKILLED LABOURER.He saved himself, however, after the sane and conservative mannerof his kind, by labelling his generalizations as "tentative." Oneof his first experiences was in the great Wilmax Cannery, where hewas put on piece-work making small packing cases. A box factorysupplied the parts, and all Freddie Drummond had to do was to fitthe parts into a form and drive in the wire nails with a lighthammer.It was not skilled labour, but it was piece-work. The ordinarylabourers in the cannery got a dollar and a half per day. FreddieDrummond found the other men on the same job with him jogging alongand earning a dollar and seventy-five cents a day. By the thirdday he was able to earn the same. But he was ambitious. He didnot care to jog along and, being unusually able and fit, on thefourth day earned two dollars.The next day, having keyed himself up to an exhausting high-tension, he earned two dollars and a half. His fellow workersfavoured him with scowls and black looks, and made remarks,slangily witty and which he did not understand, about sucking up tothe boss and pace-making and holding her down, when the rains setin. He was astonished at their malingering on piece-work,generalized about the inherent laziness of the unskilled labourer,and proceeded next day to hammer out three dollars' worth of boxes.And that night, coming out of the cannery, he was interviewed byhis fellow workmen, who were very angry and incoherently slangy.He failed to comprehend the motive behind their action. The actionitself was strenuous. When he refused to ease down his pace andbleated about freedom of contract, independent Americanism, and thedignity of toil, they proceeded to spoil his pace-making ability.It was a fierce battle, for Drummond was a large man and anathlete, but the crowd finally jumped on his ribs, walked on hisface, and stamped on his fingers, so that it was only after lyingin bed for a week that he was able to get up and look for anotherjob. All of which is duly narrated in that first book of his, inthe chapter entitled "The Tyranny of Labour."A little later, in another department of the Wilmax Cannery,lumping as a fruit-distributor among the women, he essayed to carrytwo boxes of fruit at a time, and was promptly reproached by theother fruit-lumpers. It was palpable malingering; but he wasthere, he decided, not to change conditions, but to observe. So helumped one box thereafter, and so well did he study the art ofshirking that he wrote a special chapter on it, with the lastseveral paragraphs devoted to tentative generalizations.In those six months he worked at many jobs and developed into avery good imitation of a genuine worker. He was a naturallinguist, and he kept notebooks, making a scientific study of theworkers' slang or argot, until he could talk quite intelligibly.This language also enabled him more intimately to follow theirmental processes, and thereby to gather much data for a projectedchapter in some future book which he planned to entitle SYNTHESISOF WORKING-CLASS PSYCHOLOGY.Before he arose to the surface from that first plunge into theunderworld he discovered that he was a good actor and demonstratedthe plasticity of his nature. He was himself astonished at his ownfluidity. Once having mastered the language and conquered numerousfastidious qualms, he found that he could flow into any nook ofworking-class life and fit it so snugly as to feel comfortably athome. As he said, in the preface to his second book, THE TOILER,he endeavoured really to know the working people, and the onlypossible way to achieve this was to work beside them, eat theirfood, sleep in their beds, be amused with their amusements, thinktheir thoughts, and feel their feeling.He was not a deep thinker. He had no faith in new theories. Allhis norms and criteria were conventional. His Thesis on the FrenchRevolution was noteworthy in college annals, not merely for itspainstaking and voluminous accuracy, but for the fact that it wasthe dryest, deadest, most formal, and most orthodox screed everwritten on the subject. He was a very reserved man, and hisnatural inhibition was large in quantity and steel-like in quality.He had but few friends. He was too undemonstrative, too frigid.He had no vices, nor had any one ever discovered any temptations.Tobacco he detested, beer he abhorred, and he was never known todrink anything stronger than an occasional light wine at dinner.When a freshman he had been baptized "Ice-Box" by his warmer-blooded fellows. As a member of the faculty he was known as "Cold-Storage." He had but one grief, and that was "Freddie." He hadearned it when he played full-back in the 'Varsity eleven, and hisformal soul had never succeeded in living it down. "Freddie" hewould ever be, except officially, and through nightmare vistas helooked into a future when his world would speak of him as "OldFreddie."For he was very young to be a doctor of sociology, only twenty-seven, and he looked younger. In appearance and atmosphere he wasa strapping big college man, smooth-faced and easy-mannered, cleanand simple and wholesome, with a known record of being a splendidathlete and an implied vast possession of cold culture of theinhibited sort. He never talked shop out of class and committeerooms, except later on, when his books showered him withdistasteful public notice and he yielded to the extent of readingoccasional papers before certain literary and economic societies.He did everything right - too right; and in dress and comportmentwas inevitably correct. Not that he was a dandy. Far from it. Hewas a college man, in dress and carriage as like as a pea to thetype that of late years is being so generously turned out of ourinstitutions of higher learning. His handshake was satisfyinglystrong and stiff. His blue eyes were coldly blue and convincinglysincere. His voice, firm and masculine, clean and crisp ofenunciation, was pleasant to the ear. The one drawback to FreddieDrummond was his inhibition. He never unbent. In his footballdays, the higher the tension of the game, the cooler he grew. Hewas noted as a boxer, but he was regarded as an automaton, with theinhuman precision of a machine judging distance and timing blows,guarding, blocking, and stalling. He was rarely punished himself,while he rarely punished an opponent. He was too clever and toocontrolled to permit himself to put a pound more weight into apunch than he intended. With him it was a matter of exercise. Itkept him fit.As time went by, Freddie Drummond found himself more frequentlycrossing the Slot and losing himself in South of Market. Hissummer and winter holidays were spent there, and, whether it was aweek or a week-end, he found the time spent there to be valuableand enjoyable. And there was so much material to be gathered. Histhird book, MASS AND MASTER, became a text-book in the Americanuniversities; and almost before he knew it, he was at work on afourth one, THE FALLACY OF THE INEFFICIENT.Somewhere in his make-up there was a strange twist or quirk.Perhaps it was a recoil from his environment and training, or fromthe tempered seed of his ancestors, who had been book-mengeneration preceding generation; but at any rate, he foundenjoyment in being down in the working-class world. In his ownworld he was "Cold-Storage," but down below he was "Big" BillTotts, who could drink and smoke, and slang and fight, and be anall-round favourite. Everybody liked Bill, and more than oneworking girl made love to him. At first he had been merely a goodactor, but as time went on, simulation became second nature. He nolonger played a part, and he loved sausages, sausages and bacon,than which, in his own proper sphere, there was nothing moreloathsome in the way of food.From doing the thing for the need's sake, he came to doing thething for the thing's sake. He found himself regretting as thetime drew near for him to go back to his lecture-room and hisinhibition. And he often found himself waiting with anticipationfor the dreamy time to pass when he could cross the Slot and cutloose and play the devil. He was not wicked, but as "Big" BillTotts he did a myriad things that Freddie Drummond would never havebeen permitted to do. Moreover, Freddie Drummond never would havewanted to do them. That was the strangest part of his discovery.Freddie Drummond and Bill Totts were two totally differentcreatures. The desires and tastes and impulses of each ran counterto the other's. Bill Totts could shirk at a job with clearconscience, while Freddie Drummond condemned shirking as vicious,criminal, and un-American, and devoted whole chapters tocondemnation of the vice. Freddie Drummond did not care fordancing, but Bill Totts never missed the nights at the variousdancing clubs, such as The Magnolia, The Western Star, and TheElite; while he won a massive silver cup, standing thirty incheshigh, for being the best-sustained character at the Butchers andMeat Workers' annual grand masked ball. And Bill Totts liked thegirls and the girls liked him, while Freddie Drummond enjoyedplaying the ascetic in this particular, was open in his oppositionto equal suffrage, and cynically bitter in his secret condemnationof coeducation.Freddie Drummond changed his manners with his dress, and withouteffort. When he entered the obscure little room used for histransformation scenes, he carried himself just a bit too stiffly.He was too erect, his shoulders were an inch too far back, whilehis face was grave, almost harsh, and practically expressionless.But when he emerged in Bill Totts' clothes he was another creature.Bill Totts did not slouch, but somehow his whole form limbered upand became graceful. The very sound of the voice was changed, andthe laugh was loud and hearty, while loose speech and an occasionaloath were as a matter of course on his lips. Also, Bill Totts wasa trifle inclined to late hours, and at times, in saloons, to begood-naturedly bellicose with other workmen. Then, too, at Sundaypicnics or when coming home from the show, either arm betrayed apractised familiarity in stealing around girls' waists, while hedisplayed a wit keen and delightful in the flirtatious badinagethat was expected of a good fellow in his class.So thoroughly was Bill Totts himself, so thoroughly a workman, agenuine denizen of South of the Slot, that he was as class-conscious as the average of his kind, and his hatred for a scabeven exceeded that of the average loyal union man. During theWater Front Strike, Freddie Drummond was somehow able to standapart from the unique combination, and, coldly critical, watch BillTotts hilariously slug scab longshoremen. For Bill Totts was adues-paying member of the Longshoremen Union and had a right to beindignant with the usurpers of his job. "Big" Bill Totts was sovery big, and so very able, that it was "Big" Bill to the frontwhen trouble was brewing. From acting outraged feelings, FreddieDrummond, in the role of his other self, came to experience genuineoutrage, and it was only when he returned to the classic atmosphereof the university that he was able, sanely and conservatively, togeneralize upon his underworld experiences and put them down onpaper as a trained sociologist should. That Bill Totts lacked theperspective to raise him above class-consciousness Freddie Drummondclearly saw. But Bill Totts could not see it. When he saw a scabtaking his job away, he saw red at the same time, and little elsedid he see. It was Freddie Drummond, irreproachably clothed andcomported, seated at his study desk or facing his class inSOCIOLOGY 17, who saw Bill Totts, and all around Bill Totts, andall around the whole scab and union-labour problem and its relationto the economic welfare of the United States in the struggle forthe world market. Bill Totts really wasn't able to see beyond thenext meal and the prize-fight the following night at the GaietyAthletic Club.It was while gathering material for WOMEN AND WORK that Freddiereceived his first warning of the danger he was in. He was toosuccessful at living in both worlds. This strange dualism he haddeveloped was after all very unstable, and, as he sat in his studyand meditated, he saw that it could not endure. It was really atransition stage, and if he persisted he saw that he wouldinevitably have to drop one world or the other. He could notcontinue in both. And as he looked at the row of volumes thatgraced the upper shelf of his revolving book-case, his volumes,beginning with his Thesis and ending with WOMEN AND WORK, hedecided that that was the world he would hold to and stick by.Bill Totts had served his purpose, but he had become a toodangerous accomplice. Bill Totts would have to cease.Freddie Drummond's fright was due to Mary Condon, President of theInternational Glove Workers' Union No. 974. He had seen her,first, from the spectators' gallery, at the annual convention ofthe Northwest Federation of Labour, and he had seen her throughBill Totts' eyes, and that individual had been most favourablyimpressed by her. She was not Freddie Drummond's sort at all.What if she were a royal-bodied woman, graceful and sinewy as apanther, with amazing black eyes that could fill with fire orlaughter-love, as the mood might dictate? He detested women with atoo exuberant vitality and a lack of . . . well, of inhibition.Freddie Drummond accepted the doctrine of evolution because it wasquite universally accepted by college men, and he flatly believedthat man had climbed up the ladder of life out of the welteringmuck and mess of lower and monstrous organic things. But he was atrifle ashamed of this genealogy, and preferred not to think of it.Wherefore, probably, he practised his iron inhibition and preachedit to others, and preferred women of his own type, who could shakefree of this bestial and regrettable ancestral line and bydiscipline and control emphasize the wideness of the gulf thatseparated them from what their dim forbears had been.Bill Totts had none of these considerations. He had liked MaryCondon from the moment his eyes first rested on her in theconvention hall, and he had made it a point, then and there, tofind out who she was. The next time he met her, and quite byaccident, was when he was driving an express waggon for PatMorrissey. It was in a lodging-house in Mission Street, where hehad been called to take a trunk into storage. The landlady'sdaughter had called him and led him to the little bedroom, theoccupant of which, a glove-maker, had just been removed tohospital. But Bill did not know this. He stooped, up-ended thetrunk, which was a large one, got it on his shoulder, and struggledto his feet with his back toward the open door. At that moment heheard a woman's voice."Belong to the union?" was the question asked."Aw, what's it to you?" he retorted. "Run along now, an' git outamy way. I wanta turn round."The next he know, big as he was, he was whirled half around andsent reeling backward, the trunk overbalancing him, till he fetchedup with a crash against the wall. He started to swear, but at thesame instant found himself looking into Mary Condon's flashing,angry eyes."Of course I b'long to the union," he said. "I was only kiddin'you.""Where's your card?" she demanded in businesslike tones."In my pocket. But I can't git it out now. This trunk's too damnheavy. Come on down to the waggon an' I'll show it to you.""Put that trunk down," was the command."What for? I got a card, I'm tellin' you.""Put it down, that's all. No scab's going to handle that trunk.You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you big coward, scabbing onhonest men. Why don't you join the union and be a man?"Mary Condon's colour had left her face, and it was apparent thatshe was in a rage."To think of a big man like you turning traitor to his class. Isuppose you're aching to join the militia for a chance to shootdown union drivers the next strike. You may belong to the militiaalready, for that matter. You're the sort - ""Hold on, now, that's too much!" Bill dropped the trunk to thefloor with a bang, straightened up, and thrust his hand into hisinside coat pocket. "I told you I was only kiddin'. There, lookat that."It was a union card properly enough."All right, take it along," Mary Condon said. "And the next timedon't kid."Her face relaxed as she noticed the ease with which he got the bigtrunk to his shoulder, and her eyes glowed as they glanced over thegraceful massiveness of the man. But Bill did not see that. Hewas too busy with the trunk.The next time he saw Mary Condon was during the Laundry Strike.The Laundry Workers, but recently organized, were green at thebusiness, and had petitioned Mary Condon to engineer the strike.Freddie Drummond had had an inkling of what was coming, and hadsent Bill Totts to join the union and investigate. Bill's job wasin the wash-room, and the men had been called out first, thatmorning, in order to stiffen the courage of the girls; and Billchanced to be near the door to the mangle-room when Mary Condonstarted to enter. The superintendent, who was both large andstout, barred her way. He wasn't going to have his girls calledout, and he'd teach her a lesson to mind her own business. And asMary tried to squeeze past him he thrust her back with a fat handon her shoulder. She glanced around and saw Bill."Here you, Mr. Totts," she called. "Lend a hand. I want to getin."Bill experienced a startle of warm surprise. She had rememberedhis name from his union card. The next moment the superintendenthad been plucked from the doorway raving about rights under thelaw, and the girls were deserting their machines. During the restof that short and successful strike, Bill constituted himself MaryCondon's henchman and messenger, and when it was over returned tothe University to be Freddie Drummond and to wonder what Bill Tottscould see in such a woman.Freddie Drummond was entirely safe, but Bill had fallen in love.There was no getting away from the fact of it, and it was this factthat had given Freddie Drummond his warning. Well, he had done hiswork, and his adventures could cease. There was no need for him tocross the Slot again. All but the last three chapters of hislatest, LABOUR TACTICS AND STRATEGY, was finished, and he hadsufficient material on hand adequately to supply those chapters.Another conclusion he arrived at, was that in order to sheet-anchorhimself as Freddie Drummond, closer ties and relations in his ownsocial nook were necessary. It was time that he was married,anyway, and he was fully aware that if Freddie Drummond didn't getmarried, Bill Totts assuredly would, and the complications were tooawful to contemplate. And so, enters Catherine Van Vorst. She wasa college woman herself, and her father, the one wealthy member ofthe faculty, was the head of the Philosophy Department as well. Itwould be a wise marriage from every standpoint, Freddie Drummondconcluded when the engagement was consummated and announced. Inappearance cold and reserved, aristocratic and wholesomelyconservative, Catherine Van Vorst, though warm in her way,possessed an inhibition equal to Drummond's.All seemed well with him, but Freddie Drummond could not quiteshake off the call of the underworld, the lure of the free andopen, of the unhampered, irresponsible life South of the Slot. Asthe time of his marriage approached, he felt that he had indeedsowed wild oats, and he felt, moreover, what a good thing it wouldbe if he could have but one wild fling more, play the good fellowand the wastrel one last time, ere he settled down to grey lecture-rooms and sober matrimony. And, further to tempt him, the verylast chapter of LABOUR TACTICS AND STRATEGY remained unwritten forlack of a trifle more of essential data which he had neglected togather.So Freddie Drummond went down for the last time as Bill Totts, gothis data, and, unfortunately, encountered Mary Condon. Once moreinstalled in his study, it was not a pleasant thing to look backupon. It made his warning doubly imperative. Bill Totts hadbehaved abominably. Not only had he met Mary Condon at the CentralLabour Council, but he had stopped at a chop-house with her, on theway home, and treated her to oysters. And before they parted ather door, his arms had been about her, and he had kissed her on thelips and kissed her repeatedly. And her last words in his ear,words uttered softly with a catchy sob in the throat that wasnothing more nor less than a love cry, were "Bill . . . dear, dearBill."Freddie Drummond shuddered at the recollection. He saw the pityawning for him. He was not by nature a polygamist, and he wasappalled at the possibilities of the situation. It would have tobe put an end to, and it would end in one only of two ways: eitherhe must become wholly Bill Totts and be married to Mary Condon, orhe must remain wholly Freddie Drummond and be married to CatherineVan Vorst. Otherwise, his conduct would be beneath contempt andhorrible.In the several months that followed, San Francisco was torn withlabour strife. The unions and the employers' associations hadlocked horns with a determination that looked as if they intendedto settle the matter, one way or the other, for all time. ButFreddie Drummond corrected proofs, lectured classes, and did notbudge. He devoted himself to Catherine Van Vorst, and day by dayfound more to respect and admire in her - nay, even to love in her.The Street Car Strike tempted him, but not so severely as he wouldhave expected; and the great Meat Strike came on and left him cold.The ghost of Bill Totts had been successfully laid, and FreddieDrummond with rejuvenescent zeal tackled a brochure, long-planned,on the topic of "diminishing returns."The wedding was two weeks off, when, one afternoon, in SanFrancisco, Catherine Van Vorst picked him up and whisked him awayto see a Boys' Club, recently instituted by the settlement workersin whom she was interested. It was her brother's machine, but theywere alone with the exception of the chauffeur. At the junctionwith Kearny Street, Market and Geary Streets intersect like thesides of a sharp-angled letter "V." They, in the auto, were comingdown Market with the intention of negotiating the sharp apex andgoing up Geary. But they did not know what was coming down Geary,timed by fate to meet them at the apex. While aware from thepapers that the Meat Strike was on and that it was an exceedinglybitter one, all thought of it at that moment was farthest fromFreddie Drummond's mind. Was he not seated beside Catherine? Andbesides, he was carefully expositing to her his views on settlementwork - views that Bill Totts' adventures had played a part informulating.Coming down Geary Street were six meat waggons. Beside each scabdriver sat a policeman. Front and rear, and along each side ofthis procession, marched a protecting escort of one hundred police.Behind the police rearguard, at a respectful distance, was anorderly but vociferous mob, several blocks in length, thatcongested the street from sidewalk to sidewalk. The Beef Trust wasmaking an effort to supply the hotels, and, incidentally, to beginthe breaking of the strike. The St. Francis had already beensupplied, at a cost of many broken windows and broken heads, andthe expedition was marching to the relief of the Palace Hotel.All unwitting, Drummond sat beside Catherine, talking settlementwork, as the auto, honking methodically and dodging traffic, swungin a wide curve to get around the apex. A big coal waggon, loadedwith lump coal and drawn by four huge horses, just debouching fromKearny Street as though to turn down Market, blocked their way.The driver of the waggon seemed undecided, and the chauffeur,running slow but disregarding some shouted warning from thecrossing policemen, swerved the auto to the left, violating thetraffic rules, in order to pass in front of the waggon.At that moment Freddie Drummond discontinued his conversation. Nordid he resume it again, for the situation was developing with therapidity of a transformation scene. He heard the roar of the mobat the rear, and caught a glimpse of the helmeted police and thelurching meat waggons. At the same moment, laying on his whip, andstanding up to his task, the coal driver rushed horses and waggonsquarely in front of the advancing procession, pulled the horses upsharply, and put on the big brake. Then he made his lines fast tothe brake-handle and sat down with the air of one who had stoppedto stay. The auto had been brought to a stop, too, by his bigpanting leaders which had jammed against it.Before the chauffeur could back clear, an old Irishman, driving arickety express waggon and lashing his one horse to a gallop, hadlocked wheels with the auto. Drummond recognized both horse andwaggon, for he had driven them often himself. The Irishman was PatMorrissey. On the other side a brewery waggon was locking with thecoal waggon, and an east-bound Kearny Street car, wildly clangingits gong, the motorman shouting defiance at the crossing policeman,was dashing forward to complete the blockade. And waggon afterwaggon was locking and blocking and adding to the confusion. Themeat waggons halted. The police were trapped. The roar at therear increased as the mob came on to the attack, while the vanguardof the police charged the obstructing waggons."We're in for it," Drummond remarked coolly to Catherine."Yes," she nodded, with equal coolness. "What savages they are."His admiration for her doubled on itself. She was indeed his sort.He would have been satisfied with her even if she had screamed, andclung to him, but this - this was magnificent. She sat in thatstorm centre as calmly as if it had been no more than a block ofcarriages at the opera.The police were struggling to clear a passage. The driver of thecoal waggon, a big man in shirt sleeves, lighted a pipe and satsmoking. He glanced down complacently at a captain of police whowas raving and cursing at him, and his only acknowledgment was ashrug of the shoulders. From the rear arose the rat-rat-tat ofclubs on heads and a pandemonium of cursing, yelling, and shouting.A violent accession of noise proclaimed that the mob had brokenthrough and was dragging a scab from a waggon. The police captainreinforced from his vanguard, and the mob at the rear was repelled.Meanwhile, window after window in the high office building on theright had been opened, and the class-conscious clerks were raininga shower of office furniture down on the heads of police and scabs.Waste-baskets, ink-bottles, paper-weights, type-writers - anythingand everything that came to hand was filling the air.A policeman, under orders from his captain, clambered to the loftyseat of the coal waggon to arrest the driver. And the driver,rising leisurely and peacefully to meet him, suddenly crumpled himin his arms and threw him down on top of the captain. The driverwas a young giant, and when he climbed on his load and poised alump of coal in both hands, a policeman, who was just scaling thewaggon from the side, let go and dropped back to earth. Thecaptain ordered half-a-dozen of his men to take the waggon. Theteamster, scrambling over the load from side to side, beat themdown with huge lumps of coal.The crowd on the sidewalks and the teamsters on the locked waggonsroared encouragement and their own delight. The motorman, smashinghelmets with his controller bar, was beaten into insensibility anddragged from his platform. The captain of police, beside himselfat the repulse of his men, led the next assault on the coal waggon.A score of police were swarming up the tall-sided fortress. Butthe teamster multiplied himself. At times there were six or eightpolicemen rolling on the pavement and under the waggon. Engaged inrepulsing an attack on the rear end of his fortress, the teamsterturned about to see the captain just in the act of stepping on tothe seat from the front end. He was still in the air and in mostunstable equilibrium, when the teamster hurled a thirty-pound lumpof coal. It caught the captain fairly on the chest, and he wentover backward, striking on a wheeler's back, tumbling on to theground, and jamming against the rear wheel of the auto.Catherine thought he was dead, but he picked himself up and chargedback. She reached out her gloved hand and patted the flank of thesnorting, quivering horse. But Drummond did not notice the action.He had eyes for nothing save the battle of the coal waggon, whilesomewhere in his complicated psychology, one Bill Totts was heavingand straining in an effort to come to life. Drummond believed inlaw and order and the maintenance of the established, but thisriotous savage within him would have none of it. Then, if ever,did Freddie Drummond call upon his iron inhibition to save him.But it is written that the house divided against itself must fall.And Freddie Drummond found that he had divided all the will andforce of him with Bill Totts, and between them the entity thatconstituted the pair of them was being wrenched in twain.Freddie Drummond sat in the auto, quite composed, alongsideCatherine Van Vorst; but looking out of Freddie Drummond's eyes wasBill Totts, and somewhere behind those eyes, battling for thecontrol of their mutual body, were Freddie Drummond the sane andconservative sociologist, and Bill Totts, the class-conscious andbellicose union working man. It was Bill Totts, looking out ofthose eyes, who saw the inevitable end of the battle on the coalwaggon. He saw a policeman gain the top of the load, a second, anda third. They lurched clumsily on the loose footing, but theirlong riot-clubs were out and swinging. One blow caught theteamster on the head. A second he dodged, receiving it on theshoulder. For him the game was plainly up. He dashed in suddenly,clutched two policemen in his arms, and hurled himself a prisonerto the pavement, his hold never relaxing on his two captors.Catherine Van Vorst was sick and faint at sight of the blood andbrutal fighting. But her qualms were vanquished by the sensationaland most unexpected happening that followed. The man beside heremitted an unearthly and uncultured yell and rose to his feet. Shesaw him spring over the front seat, leap to the broad rump of thewheeler, and from there gain the waggon. His onslaught was like awhirlwind. Before the bewildered officer on the load could guessthe errand of this conventionally clad but excited-seeminggentleman, he was the recipient of a punch that arched him backthrough the air to the pavement. A kick in the face led anascending policeman to follow his example. A rush of three moregained the top and locked with Bill Totts in a gigantic clinch,during which his scalp was opened up by a club, and coat, vest, andhalf his starched shirt were torn from him. But the threepolicemen were flung far and wide, and Bill Totts, raining downlumps of coal, held the fort.The captain led gallantly to the attack, but was bowled over by achunk of coal that burst on his head in black baptism. The need ofthe police was to break the blockade in front before the mob couldbreak in at the rear, and Bill Totts' need was to hold the waggontill the mob did break through. So the battle of the coal went on.The crowd had recognized its champion. "Big" Bill, as usual, hadcome to the front, and Catherine Van Vorst was bewildered by thecries of "Bill! O you Bill!" that arose on every hand. PatMorrissey, on his waggon seat, was jumping and screaming in anecstasy, "Eat 'em, Bill! Eat 'em! Eat 'em alive!" From thesidewalk she heard a woman's voice cry out, "Look out, Bill - frontend!" Bill took the warning and with well-directed coal clearedthe front end of the waggon of assailants. Catherine Van Vorstturned her head and saw on the curb of the sidewalk a woman withvivid colouring and flashing black eyes who was staring with allher soul at the man who had been Freddie Drummond a few minutesbefore.The windows of the office building became vociferous with applause.A fresh shower of office chairs and filing cabinets descended. Themob had broken through on one side the line of waggons, and wasadvancing, each segregated policeman the centre of a fightinggroup. The scabs were torn from their seats, the traces of thehorses cut, and the frightened animals put in flight. Manypolicemen crawled under the coal waggon for safety, while the loosehorses, with here and there a policeman on their backs orstruggling at their heads to hold them, surged across the sidewalkopposite the jam and broke into Market Street.Catherine Van Vorst heard the woman's voice calling in warning.She was back on the curb again, and crying out -"Beat it, Bill! Now's your time! Beat it!"The police for the moment had been swept away. Bill Totts leapedto the pavement and made his way to the woman on the sidewalk.Catherine Van Vorst saw her throw her arms around him and kiss himon the lips; and Catherine Van Vorst watched him curiously as hewent on down the sidewalk, one arm around the woman, both talkingand laughing, and he with a volubility and abandon she could neverhave dreamed possible.The police were back again and clearing the jam while waiting forreinforcements and new drivers and horses. The mob had done itswork and was scattering, and Catherine Van Vorst, still watching,could see the man she had known as Freddie Drummond. He towered ahead above the crowd. His arm was still about the woman. And shein the motor-car, watching, saw the pair cross Market Street, crossthe Slot, and disappear down Third Street into the labour ghetto.In the years that followed no more lectures were given in theUniversity of California by one Freddie Drummond, and no more bookson economics and the labour question appeared over the name ofFrederick A. Drummond. On the other hand there arose a new labourleader, William Totts by name. He it was who married Mary Condon,President of the International Glove Workers' Union No. 974; and heit was who called the notorious Cooks and Waiters' Strike, which,before its successful termination, brought out with it scores ofother unions, among which, of the more remotely allied, were theChicken Pickers and the Undertakers.

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