The lawyer concluded: "I don't see how those
fellows stand it."
"They don't, all of them," said the doctor. "Or their wives and children
don't. Some of them die."
"I wonder," the lawyer pursued, "what has become of the good old American
fact that there is always work for those who are willing to work? I notice
that wherever five thousand men strike in the forenoon, there are five
thousand men to take their places in the afternoon--and not men who are
turning their hands to something new, but men who are used to doing the
very thing the strikers have done."
"That is one of the things that teach the futility of strikes," the
professor made haste to interpose, as if he had not quite liked to appear
averse to the interests of the workman; no one likes to do that. "If there
were anything at all to be hoped from them, it would be another matter."
"Yes, but that isn't the point, quite," said the lawyer.
"By-the-way, what is the point?" I asked, with my humorous lightness.
"Why, I supposed," said the banker, "it was the question how the working
classes amused their elegant leisure. But it seems to be almost anything
else.
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