“Yes, I’ll tell you there,” she fairly shrieked, “that I want the girls to strike!”

Marrin turned.

“Can’t you shut up?”

And then Sally wheeled about and spoke to the two hundred.

“Girls! come on out!  We’ll tie him up!  We’re not like the men! We won’t stand for such things, will we?”

Then, in the stillness, Jewish girls here and there rose from their machines.  It was like the appearance of apparitions.  How did it come that these girls were more ready than any one could have guessed, and were but waiting the call?  More and more arose, and low murmurs spread, words, “It’s about time!  I won’t slave any more!  He had no right to put out Izon!  The men are afraid!  Mr. Blaine is right!”

Marrin tried to shout: 

“I order you to get to work!”

But a tumult drowned his voice, a busy clamor, an exultant jabber of tongues, a rising, a shuffling, a moving about.

Sally marched down the aisle.

“Follow me, girls!  We’re going to have a union!”

It might have been the Pied Piper of Hamelin whistling up the rats—­there was a hurrying, a scurrying, a weird laughter, a blowing about of words, and the two hundred, first swallowing up Sally, crowded the doorway, moved slowly, pushed, shoved, wedged through, and disappeared, thundering, shouting and laughing, down the steps.  The two hundred, always so subdued, so easily bossed, so obedient and submissive, had risen and gone.

Marrin looked apoplectic.  He rushed over to where the forty-four men were sitting like frightened animals.  He spoke to the one nearest him.

“Who was that girl?  I’ve seen her somewhere!”

“She?” the man stammered.  “That’s Joe Blaine’s girl.”

“Joe Blaine!” cried Marrin.

“Look,” said the man, handing Marrin a copy of The Nine-Tenths, “the girls read this this morning.  That’s why they struck.”

Marrin seized the paper.  He saw the title: 

FORTY-FIVE TREACHEROUS MEN

and he read beneath it: 

Theodore Marrin, and the forty-four who went back to work for him:  Every one of you is a traitor to American citizenship.  Let us use blunt words and call a spade a spade.  Theodore Marrin, you have betrayed your employees.

And then farther down: 

No decent human being would work for such a man.  He has no right to be an employer—­not in such hands should be placed the sacred welfare of men and women.  If I were one of Marrin’s employees I would prefer the streets to his shop.

Marrin looked up at the forty-four.  And he saw that they were more than frightened—­they were in an ugly humor, almost ferocious.  The article had goaded them into a senseless fury.

Marrin spoke more easily.

“So that’s your friend of labor, that’s your Joe Blaine.  Well, here is what your Joe Blaine has done for you.  You’re no good to me without the girls.  You’re all discharged!”