“Oh, ho, he has, has he?” said.  “Well, when next Mister Harrison happens around you tell him that he can look elsewhere for a position.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You don’t happen to belong to a Butlers’ Union, do you, Harmmed?”

“No, sir,” was the answer.  “And even if I did I’d not desert my employer in a crisis like this.  No, sir, I would—­”

“All right, thank you,” I said.  “Now you get ready to accompany me.  I’ll run the machine myself, and we’ll lay in a stock of provisions to stand a siege.”

It was a beautiful first of May, even as May days go.  The sky was cloudless, there was no wind, and the air was warm—­almost balmy.  Many autos were out, but the owners were driving them themselves.  The streets were crowded but quiet.  The working class, dressed in its Sunday best, was out taking the air and observing the effects of the strike.  It was all so unusual, and withal so peaceful, that I found myself enjoying it.  My nerves were tingling with mild excitement.  It was a sort of placid adventure.  I passed Miss Chickering.  She was at the helm of her little runabout.  She swung around and came after me, catching me at the corner.

“Oh, Mr. Corf!"’ she hailed.  “Do you know where I can buy candles?  I’ve been to a dozen shops, and they’re all sold out.  It’s dreadfully awful, isn’t it?”

But her sparkling eyes gave the lie to her words.  Like the rest of us, she was enjoying it hugely.  Quite an adventure it was, getting those candles.  It was not until we went across the city and down into the working-class quarter south of Market Street that we found small corner groceries that had not yet sold out.  Miss Chickering thought one box was sufficient, but I persuaded her into taking four.  My car was large, and I laid in a dozen boxes.  There was no telling what delays might arise in the settlement of the strike.  Also, I filled the car with sacks of flour, baking-powder, tinned goods, and all the ordinary necessaries of life suggested by Harmmed, who fussed around and clucked over the purchases like an anxious old hen.

The remarkable thing, that first day of the strike, was that no one really apprehended anything serious.  The announcement of organized labour in the morning papers that it was prepared to stay out a month or three months was laughed at.  And yet that very first day we might have guessed as much from the fact that the working class took practically no part in the great rush to buy provisions.  Of course not.  For weeks and months, craftily and secretly, the whole working class had been laying in private stocks of provisions.  That was why we were permitted to go down and buy out the little groceries in the working-class neighbourhoods.

It was not until I arrived at the club that afternoon that I began to feel the first alarm.  Everything was in confusion.  There were no olives for the cocktails, and the service was by hitches and jerks.  Most of the men were angry, and all were worried.  A babel of voices greeted me as I entered.  General Folsom, nursing his capacious paunch in a window-seat in the smoking-room was defending himself against half-a-dozen excited gentlemen who were demanding that he should do something.