"These fellows at bottom care nothing for results," he wrote. "They are
not thinking of the unemployed women with families to support, they are
thinking only of themselves and their puny leadership which they fear is
threatened. Now we shall have the usual exhibition of all the old things,
struggle, and hatred and defeat."
When he had finished The Skipper and Sam went back through the alley to
the newspaper office. The Skipper sloshed again through the mud and
carried in his hand a bottle of red gin. At his desk he took the editorial
from Sam's hands and read it.
"Perfect! Perfect to the thousandth part of an inch, Old Top," he said,
pounding Sam on the shoulder. "Just what the Old Rag wanted to say about
the strike." Then climbing upon the desk and putting the plaid coat under
his head he went peacefully to sleep, and Sam, sitting beside the desk in
a shaky office chair, slept also. At daybreak a black man with a broom in
his hand woke them, and going into a long low room filled with presses The
Skipper put his head under a water tap and came back waving a soiled towel
and with water dripping from his hair.
"Now for the day and the labours thereof," he said, grinning at Sam and
taking a long drink out of the gin bottle.
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