the dreadful winter passed by without change, and without the promised rise in the price of billets. the hungerville savings bank suspended business, because deposits were so few; and the hungerville constables had their hands full preventing incendiary speeches to the excited crowds that filled the hungerville saloons. but all through the long panting summer the giant mills toiled on, turning out their tens of thousands of dollars and thousands of tons of steel every day. the delegations could no longer see the president, for the aurora, the magnificent single-sticker built for robert van rensselaer at a cost of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, was in those days electrifying the country by her wonderful performances at newport.

and then came the chill days of autumn and the prospect of another dreadful winter, with the price of billets three per cent lower[31] yet. mr. robert van rensselaer's palatial steam yacht, the comet, was about to start on a trip down the coast of florida, when he was called to hungerville by an urgent telegram, saying that the crisis was at hand.

and truly there was some bad feeling—even the president could see that; when one walked about the streets of hungerville, he saw pale, sickly children, bent and haggard women, and men glaring at him from under lowering brows. he saw houses out of repair, and starving people being turned away from them. he saw angry crowds harangued by wild-eyed men, in polish and other strange tongues.

these things the president noticed as his carriage whirled through the streets, but they did not daunt him, and after a long and angry conference the delegates of the unions came back to report that all concessions had been refused. the next morning men read in the papers that the unions had demanded a final conference, and that if nothing was granted, then there would be a strike, and a war to the end.