“You’re—­young man, you’re crazy.”

“I’m going to head off that strike.  I’m going there and I’m going to announce the plan.”

“They won’t let you speak.”

“I think they will. ...  Curiosity will make them.”

The young man did understand something of human nature, thought the professor.  Curiosity would, most likely, get a hearing for him.

“It’s dangerous,” said he.  “The men aren’t in a good humor.  There might be some fanatic there—­”

“It’s a chance,” said Bonbright, “but I’ve got to take it.”

“I’ll go with you,” said the professor.

“No.  I want to be there alone.  This thing is between my men and me.  It’s personal.  We’ve got to settle it between ourselves.”

The professor argued, pleaded; but Bonbright was stubborn, and the professor had previous acquaintance with Bonbright’s stubbornness.  Its quality was that of tool steel.  Bonbright had made up his mind to go and to go alone.  Nobody could argue him out of it.

Bonbright did go alone.  He went early in order to obtain a good position in the hall, a mammoth gathering place capable of seating three thousand people.  He entered quietly, unostentatiously, and walked to a place well toward the front, and he entered unobserved.  The street before the hall was full of arguing, gesticulating men.  Inside were other loudly talking knots, sweltering in the closeness of the place.  In corners, small impromptu meetings were listening to harangues not on the evening’s program.  Already half the seats were taken by the less emotional, more stolid men, who were content to wait in silence for the real business of the meeting.  There was an air of suspense, of tenseness, of excitement.  Bonbright could feel it.  It made him tingle; it gave him a Sensation of vibrating emptiness resembling that of a man descending in a swift elevator.

Bonbright was not accustomed to public speaking, but, somehow, he did not regard what he was about to say as a public speech.  He did not think of it as being kindred to oratory.  He was there to talk business with a gathering of his men, that was all.  He knew what he was going to say, and he was going to say it clearly, succinctly, as briefly as possible.

In half an hour the chairs on the platform were occupied by chairman, speakers, union officials.  The great hall was jammed, and hundreds packed aboat the doors in the street without, unable to gain admission. ...  The chairman opened the meeting briefly.  Behind him Bonbright saw Dulac, saw the members of the committee that had waited on him, saw other men known to him only because he had seen their pictures from time to time in the press.  It was an imposing gathering of labor thought.

Bonbright had planned what he would do.  It was best, he believed, to catch the meeting before it had been excited by oratory, before it had been lashed to anger.  It was calmer, more reasonable now than it would be again.  He arose to his feet.