Bannon sat in that silent company for more than an hour before the great man came.  Even then there was no movement among those who sat along the wall, save as they followed him almost furtively with their eyes.  The president never so much as glanced at one of them; for all he seemed to see the rank of chairs might have been empty.  He marched across to his private office, and, leaving the door open behind him, sat down before his desk.  Bannon sat still a moment, waiting for those who had come before him to make the first move, but not a man of them stirred, so, somewhat out of patience with this mysteriously solemn way of doing business, he arose and walked into the president’s office with as much assurance as though it had been his own.  He shut the door after him.  The president did not look up, but went on cutting open his mail.

“I’m from MacBride & Company, of Minneapolis,” said Bannon.

“Guess I don’t know the parties.”

“Yes, you do.  We’re building a grain elevator at Calumet.”

The president looked up quickly.  “Sit down,” he said.  “Are you superintending the work?”

“Yes.  My name’s Bannon—­Charles Bannon.”

“Didn’t you have some sort of an accident out there?  An overloaded hoist?  And you hurt a man, I believe.”

“Yes.”

“And I think one of your foremen drew a revolver on a man.”

“I did, myself.”

The president let a significant pause intervene before his next question.  “What do you want with me?”

“I want you to help me out.  It looks as though we might get into trouble with our laborers.”

“You’ve come to the wrong man.  Mr. Grady is the man for you to talk with.  He’s their representative.”

“We haven’t got on very well with Mr. Grady.  The first time he came on the job he didn’t know our rule that visitors must apply at the office, and we weren’t very polite to him.  He’s been down on us ever since.  We can’t make any satisfactory agreement with him.”

Carver turned away impatiently.  “You’ll have to,” he said, “if you want to avoid trouble with your men.  It’s no business of mine.  He’s acting on their instructions.”

“No, he isn’t,” said Bannon, sharply.  “What they want, I guess, is to be treated square and paid a fair price.  What he wants is blackmail.”

“I’ve heard that kind of talk before.  It’s the same howl that an employer always makes when he’s tried to bribe an agent who’s active in the interest of the men, and got left at it.  What have you got to show for it?  Anything but just your say so?”

Bannon drew out Grady’s letter of warning and handed it to him.  Carver read it through, then tossed it on his desk.  “You certainly don’t offer that as proof that he wants blackmail, Mr. Bannon.”

“There’s never any proof of blackmail.  When a man can see me alone, he isn’t going to talk before witnesses, and he won’t commit himself in writing.  Grady told me that unless we paid his price he’d tie us up.  No one else was around when he said it.”