It was an ugly scene. The cutters, the pressers, the cloak-makers shook the black bars. “Luftgas!” they cried. “Open up! We want to work!”

The supervisor, hardly visible in the darkness, walked back and forth behind the gates, eating sunflower seeds.

“Nothing doing! No more work until the ringleaders surrender. That includes Sheftelowitz and old man Pipe!”

The pressers, giant-armed people, turned on the intellectual finishers and on the small band of buttonhole makers. “Hand them over! They are taking bread from our mouths!”

“Just a minute! There’s more!” In the dim light you could just see the white hulls on Luftgas’ shoulders. “From now on all trimming-class workers must pay a ten-zloty deposit on silk spools. Too many valuable spools have been cracked or lost. That’s ten zlotys for every spool. The next rule applies to everyone, even the knee pants experts and pressers. You will be charged for electrical power. Why should the Judenrat pay to make things easier for you? It’s possible to use a hand press, if you want to, or a foot-pedal machine. Otherwise the tax is one zloty every two hours, six zlotys per day.”

A wail went up from thousands of workers. “You want to kill us!” they cried. It was not clear whether they meant Luftgas or the finishers, those malcontents, who had brought this down on their heads. In any case it was toward the latter that the mob advanced. Nachman Kipnis attempted to head them off.

“Comrades! The events of last night have many positive aspects. First, Lipsky, our leader, was not captured. Second, the Jewish police did not take part in the search. A significant point!”

But the angry crowd, the cutters with shears in their hands, kept coming forward. Here was a classic case in which, instead of uniting to face a common enemy, Jew was fighting Jew. It was a short struggle. The finishers and buttonholers drew together about Mister Pipe, who had overnight become a popular figure. The big pressers simply knocked them out of the way. They seized Kipnis by the collar and pinned Kleiderman’s arms. In less than a minute they had taken both Sheftelowitz and Pipe. No strike can be won in such conditions. It’s the bosses you have to fight, not each other. The captured leaders were dragged to the locked metal gates. Luftgas stood behind them, his arms crossed on his chest. Surely the strikers had been defeated.

Then, from far off, came a faint droning sound.

“What’s that?” asked some of the workers.

“Shhhh,” some others, listening, replied. It was the sound of a motorcar. Swiftly coming closer.

The sky was by then a little brighter. The sun was partly up and the moon, like a soap chip, was melting away. Thus everyone saw, while it was still a full block in the distance, the black Daimler Double Six. It roared toward the crowd of workers. There were strips of black paper across its yellow lights. Then, with its brakes screeching, it came to a halt.