“We won’t reinstate Bassett,” answered Mr. Schofield, quietly.
“Then, by God, it’s fight!” cried Nixon, his face turning purple, and he brought his fist down on the desk with a crash. “Do you realize what all this is going to cost you?”
“Tell me,” suggested Mr. Schofield. “And don’t hit my desk again like that. Some of my men might think there was a fight, and come in. We don’t want any intruders.”
“No,” agreed Nixon, “we don’t,” and he glanced sharply about the room. Then he hitched his chair closer to the desk and leaned forward in his earnestness. “This thing’ll cost you a hundred thousand dollars before you’ve done with it, and no end of trouble. I’ve been lookin’ over the field, and I know. First, I’ll call off the engineers.”
“We’ll replace them,” said Mr. Schofield, promptly.
“You’ll try to,” corrected Nixon, “but it won’t be so easy as you think. Good engineers ain’t knockin’ around the country lookin’ fer scab jobs—you know that as well as I do. The good men are all in the brotherhood. All you’ll find is a few dubs who can run an engine after a fashion and who don’t belong to the brotherhood or have been kicked out—they’ll soon play hob with your engines.”
“No doubt they’re pretty bad if they’ve been kicked out,” observed Mr. Schofield.
“But,” continued Nixon, impressively, paying no heed to the interruption, “the minute this scab engineer climbs up into the cab, that same minute the fireman will climb down. More than that, no union conductor or brakeman will help run a train which a scab engineer is driving, no union switchman will throw a target for it, and no union operator will give it orders. So there you are—fire Bassett, and you’ll need mighty soon not only a new outfit of engineers, but of firemen, conductors, brakemen, switchmen and operators. Maybe you think it’ll be easy to find new men to take their places, but I don’t.”
“I don’t either,” agreed Mr. Schofield; “but just the same we won’t give up the fight before it begins.”
“Well, your lines are bound to be tied up more or less, even at the best,” said Nixon, “and right in the busy season, too. That will mean considerable of a loss.”
“And some of the loss will be permanent. When traffic is turned aside that way, if only for a short time, some of it always stays turned aside. After you git things straightened out, you’ll have to git out and hustle for business, or your earnings will show a permanent decrease.”