Jurgis was to see more of this as time passed. For the
present, his work being over, he was free to ride into the
city, by a railroad direct from the yards, or else to spend
the night in a room where cots had been laid in rows.
He chose the latter, but to his regret, for all night long
gangs of strike-breakers kept arriving. As very few of
the better class of working-men could be got for such work,
these specimens of the new American hero contained an
assortment of the criminals and thugs of the city, besides
Negroes and the lowest foreigners -- Greeks, Roumanians,
Sicilians, and Slovaks. They had been attracted more by
the prospect of disorder than by the big wages; and they
made the night hideous with singing and carousing, and
only went to sleep when the time came for them to get up
to work.

In the morning before Jurgis had finished his breakfast,
"Pat" Murphy ordered him to one of the superintendents,
who questioned him as to his experience in the work of
the killing-room. His heart began to thump with excite~
ment, for he divined instantly that his hour had come --
that he was to be a boss!

Some of the foremen were union members, and many
who were not had gone out with the men. It was in the
killing department that the packers had been left most in
the lurch, and precisely here that they could least afford
it; the smoking and canning and salting of meat might
wait, and all the by-products might be wasted -- but
fresh meats must be had, or the restaurants and hotels and
brown-stone houses would feel the pinch, and then "public
opinion" would take a startling turn.

An opportunity such as this would not come twice to a
man; and Jurgis seized it. Yes, he knew the work, the
whole of it, and he could teach it to others. But if he
took the job and gave satisfaction he would expect to keep
it -- they would not turn him off at the end of the strike?
To which the superintendent replied that he might safely
trust Durham's for that -- they proposed to teach these
unions a lesson, and most of all those foremen who had
gone back on them. Jurgis would receive five dollars a

[[321]]

p320 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p321w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p322

v?