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Title: The Walking Delegate
Author: Leroy Scott
Release Date: October 23, 2012 [EBook #41154]
Language: English
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THE WALKING DELEGATE
[Illustration: THE WALKING DELEGATE]
The
Walking Delegate
By
Leroy Scott
_With Frontispiece_
New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1905
Copyright, 1905, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
Published May, 1905
_All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian_
To My Wife
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ON THE ST. ETIENNE HOTEL 3
II. THE WALKING DELEGATE 14
III. THE RISE OF BUCK FOLEY 30
IV. A COUNCIL OF WAR 9
V. TOM SEEKS HELP FROM THE ENEMY 50
VI. IN WHICH FOLEY PLAYS WITH TWO MICE 59
VII. GETTING THE MEN IN LINE 72
VIII. THE COWARD 85
IX. RUTH ARNOLD 98
X. LAST DAYS OF THE CAMPAIGN 111
XI. IN FOLEY'S "OFFICE" 120
XII. THE ELECTION 129
XIII. THE DAY AFTER 145
XIV. NEW COURAGE AND NEW PLANS 153
XV. MR. BAXTER HAS A FEW CONFERENCES 166
XVI. BLOWS 177
XVII. THE ENTERTAINMENT COMMITTEE 187
XVIII. THE STOLEN STRIKE 203
XIX. FOLEY TASTES REVENGE 210
XX. TOM HAS A CALLER 224
XXI. WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 236
XXII. THE PROGRESS OF THE STRIKE 250
XXIII. THE TRIUMPH OF BUSINESS SENSE 257
XXIV. BUSINESS IS BUSINESS 267
XXV. IN WHICH FOLEY BOWS TO DEFEAT 279
XXVI. PETERSEN'S SIN 290
XXVII. THE THOUSANDTH CHANCE 304
XXVIII. THE EXPOSURE 313
XXIX. IN WHICH MR. BAXTER SHOWS HIMSELF A MAN OF RESOURCES 331
XXX. THE LAST OF BUCK FOLEY 338
XXXI. TOM'S LEVEE 348
XXXII. THE THORN OF THE ROSE 364
LIST OF CHARACTERS
BUCK FOLEY, a walking delegate.
TOM KEATING, a foreman.
MAGGIE KEATING, his wife.
MR. BAXTER, President of Iron Employers' Ass'n.
MRS. BAXTER.
MR. DRISCOLL, a contractor.
RUTH ARNOLD, his secretary.
MR. BERMAN, junior partner of Mr. Driscoll.
MR. MURPHY, a contractor.
MR. BOBBS, a contractor.
MR. ISAACS, a contractor.
CONNELLY, Secretary of Iron Workers' Union.
NELS PETERSEN, a "scab."
ANNA PETERSEN, his wife.
PIG IRON PETE, a workman
JOHNSON, a workman.
BARRY, a workman.
MRS. BARRY.
JAKE HENDERSON }
ARKANSAS NUMBER TWO } Members of
KAFFIR BILL } "The Entertainment
SMOKEY } Committee."
HICKEY }
THE WALKING DELEGATE
Chapter I
ON THE ST. ETIENNE HOTEL
The St. Etienne Hotel would some day be as bulky and as garishly
magnificent as four million dollars could make it. Now it was only a
steel framework rearing itself into the center of the overhead
grayness--a black pier supporting the grimy arch of heaven.
Up on its loosely-planked twenty-first story stood Mr. Driscoll,
watching his men at work. A raw February wind scraped slowly under the
dirty clouds, which soiled the whole sky, and with a leisurely content
thrust itself into his office-tendered flesh. He shivered, and at times,
to throw off the chill, he paced across the pine boards, carefully going
around the gaps his men were wont to leap. And now and then his eyes
wandered from his lofty platform. On his right, below, there were roofs;
beyond, a dull bar of water; beyond, more roofs: on his left there were
roofs; a dull bar of water; more roofs: and all around the jagged
wilderness of house-tops reached away and away till it faded into the
complete envelopment of a smudgy haze. Once Mr. Driscoll caught hold of
the head of a column and leaned out above the street; over its dizzy
bottom erratically shifted dark specks--hats. He drew back with a
shiver with which the February wind had nothing to do.
It was a principle with Mr. Driscoll, of Driscoll & Co., contractors for
steel bridges and steel frames of buildings, that you should not show
approval of your workmen's work. "Give 'em a smile and they'll do ten
per cent. less and ask ten per cent. more." So as he now watched his
men, one hand in his overcoat pocket, one on his soft felt hat, he did
not smile. It was singularly easy for him not to smile. Balanced on his
short, round body he had a round head with a rim of reddish-gray hair,
and with a purplish face that had protruding lips which sagged at each
corner, and protruding eyes whose lids blinked so sharply you seemed to
hear their click. So much nature had done to help him adhere to his
principle. And he, in turn, had added to his natural endowment by
growing mutton-chops. Long ago someone had probably expressed to him a
detestation of side-whiskers, and he of course had begun forthwith to
shave only his chin.
His men were setting twenty-five foot steel columns into place,--the
gang his eyes were now on, moving actively about a great crane, and the
gang about the great crane at the building's other end. Their coats were
buttoned to their chins to keep out the February wind; their hands were
in big, shiny gloves; their blue and brown overalls, from the handling
of painted iron, had the surface and polish of leather. They were all in
the freshness of their manhood--lean, and keen, and full of
spirit--vividly fit. Their work explained their fitness; it was a
natural civil service examination that barred all but the active and the
daring.
And yet, though he did not smile, Mr. Driscoll was cuddled by
satisfaction as he stood on the great platform just under the sky and
watched the brown men at work. He had had a deal of trouble during the
past three years--accidents, poor workmen, delays due to strikes over
inconsequential matters--all of which had severely taxed his profits and
his profanity. So the smoothness with which this, his greatest job,
progressed was his especial joy. In his heart he credited this
smoothness to the brown young foreman who had just come back to his
side--but he didn't tell Keating so.
"The riveters are keeping right on our heels," said Tom. "Would you like
to go down and have a look at 'em?"
"No," said Mr. Driscoll shortly.
The foreman shrugged his shoulders slightly, and joined the gang Mr.
Driscoll was watching. In the year he had worked for Mr. Driscoll he had
learned to be philosophic over that gentleman's gruffness: he didn't
like the man, so why should he mind his words?
The men had fastened a sling about a twenty-five foot column and to this
had attached the hook of the pulley. The seventy-foot arm of the crane
now slowly rose and drew after it the column, dangling vertically.
Directed by the signals of Tom's right hand the column sank with
precision to its appointed place at one corner of the building. It was
quickly fastened to the head of the column beneath it with four bolts.
Later the riveters, whose hammers were now maintaining a terrific rattle
two floors below, would replace the four bolts by four rows of rivets.
"Get the sling, Pete," ordered Tom.
At this a loosely-jointed man threw off his slouch hat, encircled the
column with his arms, and mounted with little springs. Near its top he
locked his legs around the column, and, thus supported and working with
both hands, he unfastened the rope from the pulley hook and the column,
and threw it below. He then stepped into the hook of the pulley, swung
through the air to the flooring, picked up his hat and slapped it
against his leg.
Sometimes Mr. Driscoll forgot his principle. While Pete was nonchalantly
loosening the sling, leaning out over the street, nothing between him
and the pavement but the grip of his legs, there was something very like
a look of admiration in Mr. Driscoll's aggravating eyes. He moved over
to Pete just as the latter was pulling on his slouch hat.
"I get a shiver every time I see a man do that," he said.
"That? That's nothin'," said Pete. "I'd a heap ruther do that than work
down in the street. Down in the street, why, who knows when a brick's
agoin' to fall on your head!"
"Um!" Mr. Driscoll remembered himself and his eyes clicked. He turned
from Pete, and called to the young foreman: "I'll look at the riveters
now."
"All right. Oh, Barry!"
There came toward Tom a little, stocky man, commonly known as "Rivet
Head." Someone had noted the likeness of his cranium to a newly-hammered
rivet, and the nickname had stuck.
"Get the other four columns up out of the street before setting any
more," Tom ordered, and then walked with Mr. Driscoll to where the head
of a ladder stuck up through the flooring.
Pete, with a sour look, watched Mr. Driscoll's round body awkwardly
disappear down the ladder.
"Boys, if I was a preacher, I know how I'd run my business," he
remarked.
"How, Pete?" queried one of the gang.
"I'd stand up Driscoll in the middle o' the road to hell, then knock off
workin' forever. When they seen him standin' there every blamed sinner'd
turn back with a yell an' stretch their legs for the other road."
"I wonder if Tom'll speak to him about them scabs," said another man,
with a scowl at a couple of men working along the building's edge.
"That ain't Tom's business, Bill," answered Pete. "It's Rivet Head's.
Tom don't like Driscoll any more'n the rest of us do, an' he ain't goin'
to say any more to him'n he has to."
"Tom ought to call him down, anyhow," Bill declared.
"You let Foley do that," put in Jake Henderson, a big fellow with a
stubbly face and a scar across his nose.
"An' let him peel off a little graft!" sneered Bill.
"Close yer face!" growled Jake.
"Come on there, boys, an' get that crane around!" shouted Barry.
Pete, Bill, and Jake sprang to the wooden lever that extended from the
base of the ninety-foot mast; and they threw their weight against the
bar, bending it as a bow. The crane slowly turned on its bearings to the
desired position. Barry, the "pusher" (under foreman), waved his
outstretched hand. The signalman, whose eyes had been alert for this
movement, pulled a rope; a bell rang in the ears of an engineer,
twenty-one floors below. The big boom slowly came down to a horizontal
position, its outer end twenty feet clear of the building's edge.
Another signal, and the heavy iron pulley began to descend to the
street.
After the pulley had started to slide down its rope there was little for
the men to do till it had climbed back up the rope with its burden of
steel. Pete--who was usually addressed as "Pig Iron," perhaps for the
reason that he claimed to be from Pittsburg--settled back at his ease
among the gang, his back against a pile of columns, his legs stretched
out.
"I've just picked out the apartment where I'm goin' to keep my celluloid
collar when this here shanty's finished," he remarked. "Over in the
corner there, lookin' down in both streets. I ain't goin' to do nothin'
but wear kid gloves, an' lean out the windows an' spit on you roughnecks
as you go by. An' my boodwar is goin' to have about seventeen
push-buttons in it. Whenever I want anything I'll just push a button,
an' up'll hot-foot a nigger with it in a suit o' clothes that's nothin'
but shirt front. Then I'll kick the nigger, an' push another button.
That's life, boys. An' I'll have plush chairs, carpets a foot thick, an
iv'ry bath-tub----"
Pete's wandering gaze caught one man watching him with serious eyes, and
he broke off. "Say, Johnson, wha' d'you suppose I want a bath-tub for?"
Johnson was an anomaly among the iron-workers--a man without a sense of
humor. He never knew when his fellows were joking and when serious; he
usually took them literally.
"To wash in," he answered.
Pete whistled. "Wash in it! Ain't you got no respect for the traditions
o' the workin' class?"
"Hey, Pig Iron; talk English!" Bill demanded. "What's traditions?"
Pete looked puzzled, and a laugh passed about the men. Then his
sang-froid returned. "Your traditions, Bill, is the things you'd try to
forget about yourself if you had enough coin to move into a place like
this."
He turned his lean face back on Johnson. "Don't you know what a
bath-tub's for, Johnson? Don't you never read the papers? Well,
here's how it is: The landlords come around wearin' about a
sixteen-candle-power incandescent smile. They puts in marble bath-tubs
all through all the houses. They're goin' to elevate us. The next day
they come around again to see how we've improved. They throw up their
hands, an' let out a few yells. There's them bath-tubs chuck full o'
coal. We didn't know what they was for,--an' they was very handy for
coal. That's us. It's down in the papers. An' here you, Johnson, you'd
ruin our repitations by usin' the bath-tubs to bathe in."
The pulley toiled into view, dragging after it two columns. Johnson was
saved the necessity of response. The men hurried to their places.
"O' course, Pig Iron, you'll be fixed all right when you've moved in
here," began Bill, after the boom had reached out and the pulley had
started spinning down for the other two columns. "But how about the rest
of us fixers? Three seventy-five a day, when we get in only six or seven
months a year, ain't makin' bankers out o' many of us."
"Only a few," admitted Pete; "an' them few ain't the whole cheese yet.
Me, I can live on three seventy-five, but I don't see how you married
men do."
"Especially with scabs stealin' your jobs," growled Bill, glancing again
at the two men working along the building's edge.
"I told you Foley'd look after them," said Barry, who had joined the
group for a moment. "It hustles most of us to keep up with the game," he
went on, in answer to Pete's last remark. "Some of us don't. An' rents
an' everything else goin' up. I don't know what we're goin' to do."
"That's easy," said Pete. "Get more money or live cheaper."
"How're we goin' to live cheaper?" demanded Bill.
"Yes, how?" seconded Barry.
"I'm for more money," declared Bill.
"Well, I reckon I wear the same size shoe," said Pete. "More
money--that's me."
"And me," "and me," joined in the other men, except Johnson.
"It's about time we were gettin' more," Pete advanced. "The last two
years the bosses have been doin' the genteel thing by their own pockets,
all right."
"We've got to have more if our kids are goin' to know a couple o' facts
more'n we do." Barry went over to the edge of the building and watched
the tiny figures attaching the columns to the pulley hook.
"That's right," said Pete. "You don't stand no chance these days to
climb up on top of a good job unless you ripped off a lot o' education
when you was young an' riveted it on to your mem'ry. I heard a preacher
once. He preached about education. He said if you wanted to get up
anywhere you had to be educated like hell. He was right, too. If you
left school when you was thirteen, why, by the time you're twenty-seven
an' had a few drinks you ain't very likely to be just what I'd call a
college on legs."
"Keating, he thinks we ought to go after more this spring," said Bill.
"I wonder what Foley thinks?" queried another of the men.
"If Tom's for a strike, why, Foley'll be again' it," one of the gang
answered. "You can place your money on that color."
"Tom certainly did pour the hot shot into Foley at the meetin' last
night," said Bill, grinning. "Grafter! He called Buck about thirteen
diff'rent kind."
"If Keating's all right in his nut he'll not go round lookin' for a
head-on collision with Buck Foley," asserted Jake, with a wise leer at
Bill.
Bill answered by giving Jake his back. "Foley don't want no strike," he
declared. "What's he want to strike for? He's gettin' his hand in the
dough bag enough the way things is now."
"See here, the whole bunch o' you roughnecks give me a pain!" broke out
Pete. "You shoot off your faces a lot when Buck's not around, but the
imitation you give on meetin' nights of a collection o' mummies can't be
beat. I ain't in love with Buck--not on your life! You can tell him so,
Jake. But he certainly has done the union a lot o' good. Tom'd say that,
too. An' you know how much Tom likes Foley. You fixers forget when you
was workin' ten hours for two dollars, an' lickin' the boots o' the
bosses to hold your jobs."
There was a short silence, then Johnson put forward cautiously: "I don't
see the good o' strikin'."
Pete stared at him. "Why?" he demanded.
"Well, I've been in the business longer'n most o' you boys, an' I ain't
found the bosses as bad as you make 'em out. When they're makin' more,
they'll pay us more."
"Oh, you go tell that to a Sunday school!" snorted Pete. "D'you ever
hear of a boss payin' more wages'n he had to? Not much! Them kind 'o
bosses's all doin' business up in heaven. If we was actually earnin'
twenty a day, d'you suppose we'd get a cent more'n three seventy-five
till we'd licked the bosses. You do--hey? That shows the kind of a nut
you've got. The boss 'ud buy a tutti-frutti yacht, or a few more
automobiles, or mebbe a college or two, where they learn you how to wear
your pants turned up; but all the extra money you'd get wouldn't pay for
the soap used by a Dago. If ever a boss offers you an extra dollar
before you've licked him, yell for a cop. He's crazy."
Pete's tirade completely flustered Johnson. "All the same, what I said's
so."
Pete snorted again. "When d'you think you're livin'? You make me tired,
Johnson. Go push yourself off the roof!"
The two last columns rose swinging above the chasm's brink, and there
was no more talk for that afternoon. For the next hour the men were busy
setting the last of the columns which were to support the twenty-second
and twenty-third stories. Then they began setting in the cross beams,
walking about on these five-inch beams (perhaps on one with the pavement
straight beneath it) with the matter-of-fact steps of a man on the
sidewalk--a circus act, lacking a safety net below, and lacking
flourishes and kisses blown to a thrilled audience.
Chapter II
THE WALKING DELEGATE
It was toward the latter part of the afternoon that a tall, angular man,
in a black overcoat and a derby hat, stepped from the ladder on to the
loose planking, glanced about and walked over to the gang of men about
the south crane.
"Hello, Buck," they called out on sight of him.
"Hello, boys," he answered carelessly.
He stood, with hands in the pockets of his overcoat, smoking his cigar,
watching the crane accurately swing a beam to its place, and a couple of
men run along it and bolt it at each end to the columns. He had a face
to hold one's look--lean and long: gray, quick eyes, set close together;
high cheek bones, with the dull polish of bronze; a thin nose, with a
vulturous droop; a wide tight mouth; a great bone of a chin;--a daring,
incisive, masterful face.
When the beam had been bolted to its place, Barry, with a reluctance he
tried to conceal, walked over to Foley.
"How's things?" asked the new-comer, rolling his cigar into the corner
of his mouth and slipping his words out between barely parted lips.
Barry was the steward on the job,--the union's representative. "Two
snakes come on the job this mornin'," he reported. "Them two over
there,--that Squarehead an' that Guinea. I was goin' to write you a
postal card about 'em to-night."
"Who put 'em to work?"
"They said Duffy, Driscoll's superintendent."
Foley grunted, and his eyes fastened thoughtfully on the two non-union
men.
"When the boys seen they had no cards, o' course they said they wouldn't
work with the scabs. But I said we'd stand 'em to-day, an' let you
straighten it out to-morrow."
"We'll fix it now." The walking delegate, with deliberate steps, moved
toward the two men, who were sitting astride an outside beam fitting in
bolts.
He paused beside the Italian. "Clear out!" he ordered quietly. He did
not take his hands from his pockets.
The Italian looked up, and without answer doggedly resumed twisting a
nut.
Foley's eyes narrowed. His lips tightened upon his cigar. Suddenly his
left hand gripped the head of a column and his right seized the shirt
and coat collar of the Italian. He jerked the man outward, unseating
him, though his legs clung about the beam, and held him over the street.
The Italian let out a frightful yell, that the wind swept along under
the clouds; and his wrench went flying from his hand. It struck close
beside a mason on a scaffold seventeen stories below. The mason gave a
jump, looked up and shook his fist.
"D'youse see the asphalt?" Foley demanded.
The man, whose down-hanging face was forced to see the pavement far
below, with the little hats moving about over it, shrilled out his fear
again.
"In about a minute youse'll be layin' there, as flat as a picture, if
youse don't clear out!"
The man answered with a mixture of Italian, English, and yells; from
which Foley gathered that he was willing to go, but preferred to gain
the street by way of the ladders rather than by the direct route.
Foley jerked him back to his seat, and a pair of frantic arms gripped
his legs. "Now chase yourself, youse scab! Or----" Foley knew how to
swear.
The Italian rose tremblingly and stepped across to the flooring. He
dropped limply to a seat on a prostrate column, and moaned into his
hands.
Without glancing at him or at the workmen who had eyed this measure
doubtfully, Foley moved over to the Swede and gripped him as he had the
Italian. "Now youse, youse sneakin' Squarehead! Get out o' here, too!"
The Swede's right hand came up and laid hold of Foley's wrist with a
grip that made the walking delegate start. The scab rose to his feet and
stepped across to the planking. Foley was tall, but the Swede out-topped
him by an inch.
"I hold ma yob, yes," growled the Swede, a sudden flame coming into his
heavy eyes.
Foley had seen that look in a thousand scabs' eyes before. He knew its
meaning. He drew back a pace, pulled his derby hat tightly down on his
head and bit into his cigar, every lean muscle alert.
"Get off the job! Or I'll kick youse off!"
The Swede stepped forward, his shoulders hunched up. Foley crouched
back; his narrowed gray eyes gleamed. The men in both gangs looked on
from their places about the cranes and up on the beams in statued
expectation. Barry and Pig Iron hurried up to Foley's support.
"Keep back!" he ordered sharply. They fell away from him.
A minute passed--the two men standing on the loosely-planked edge of a
sheer precipice, watching each other with tense eyes. Suddenly a change
began in the Swede; the spirit went out of him as the glow from a
cooling rivet. His arms sank to his side, and he turned and fairly slunk
over to where lay an old brown overcoat.
The men started with relief, then burst into a jeering laugh. Foley
moved toward Barry, then paused and, with hands back in his pockets,
watched the two scabs make their preparation to leave, trundling his
cigar about with his thin prehensile lips. As they started down the
ladder, the Swede sullen, the Italian still trembling, he walked over to
them with sudden decision.
"Go on back to work," he ordered.
The two looked at him in surprised doubt.
"Go on!" He jerked his head toward the places they had left.
They hesitated; then the Swede lay off his old coat and started back to
his place, and the Italian followed, his fearful eyes on the walking
delegate.
Foley rejoined Barry. "I'm goin' to settle this thing with Driscoll," he
said to the pusher, loudly, answering the amazed questioning he saw in
the eyes of all the men. "I'm goin' to settle the scab question for good
with him. Let them two snakes work till youse hear from me."
He paused, then asked abruptly: "Where's Keating?"
"Down with the riveters."
"So-long, boys," he called to Barry's gang; and at the head of the
ladder he gestured a farewell to the gang about the other crane. Then
his long body sank through the flooring.
At the bottom of the thirty-foot ladder he paused and looked around
through the maze of beams and columns. This floor was not boarded, as
was the one he had just left. Here and there were little platforms on
which stood small portable forges, a man at each turning the fan and
stirring the rivets among the red coals; and here and there were groups
of three men, driving home the rivets. At regular intervals each heater
would take a white rivet from his forge, toss it from his tongs sizzling
through the air to a man twenty feet away, who would deftly catch it in
a tin can. This man would seize the glowing bit of steel with a pair of
pincers, strike it smartly against a beam, at which off would go a spray
of sparks like an exploding rocket, and then thrust it through its hole.
Immediately the terrific throbbing of a pneumatic hammer, held hard
against the rivet by another man, would clinch it to its destiny of
clinging with all its might. And then, flashing through the gray air
like a meteor at twilight, would come another sparkling rivet.
And on all sides, beyond the workmen calmly playing at catch with
white-hot steel, and beyond the black crosswork of beams and columns,
Foley could see great stretches of housetops that in sullen rivalry
strove to overmatch the dinginess of the sky.
Foley caught sight of Tom with a riveting gang at the southeast corner
of the building, and he started toward him, walking over the five-inch
beams with a practiced step, and now and then throwing a word at some of
the men he passed, and glancing casually down at the workmen putting in
the concrete flooring three stories below. Tom had seen him coming, and
had turned his back upon his approach.
"H'are you, Buck!" shouted one of the gang.
Though Foley was but ten feet away, it was the man's lips alone that
gave greeting to him; the ravenous din of the pneumatic hammer devoured
every other sound. He shouted a reply; his lip movements signaled to the
man: "Hello, fellows."
Tom still kept his ignoring back upon Foley. The walking delegate
touched him on the shoulder. "I'd like to trade some words with youse,"
he remarked.
Tom's set face regarded him steadily an instant; then he said: "All
right."
"Come on." Foley led the way across beams to the opposite corner of the
building where there was a platform now deserted by its forge, and where
the noise was slightly less dense. For a space the two men looked
squarely into each other's face--Tom's set, Foley's expressionless--as
if taking the measure of the other;--and meanwhile the great framework
shivered, and the air rattled, under the impact of the throbbing
hammers. They were strikingly similar, and strikingly dissimilar.
Aggressiveness, fearlessness, self-confidence, a sense of leadership,
showed themselves in the faces and bearing of the two, though all three
qualities were more pronounced in the older man. Their dissimilarity was
summed up in their eyes: there was something to take and hold your
confidence in Tom's; Foley's were full of deep, resourceful cunning.
"Well?" said Tom, at length.
"What's your game?" asked Foley in a tone that was neither friendly nor
unfriendly. "Wha' d'youse want?"
"Nothing,--from you."
Foley went on in the same colorless tone. "I don't know. Youse've been
doin' a lot o' growlin' lately. I've had a lot o' men fightin' me. Most
of 'em wanted to be bought off."
Tom recognized in these words a distant overture of peace,--a peace that
if accepted would be profitable to him. He went straight to Foley's
insinuated meaning.
"You ought to know that's not my size," he returned quietly. "You've
tried to buy me off more than once."
The mask went from Foley's face and his mouth and forehead creased into
harsh lines. His words came out like whetted steel. "See here. I would
pass over the kind o' talkin' youse've been doin'. Somebody's always
growlin'. Somebody's got to growl. But what youse said at the meetin'
last night, I ain't goin' to stand for that kind o' talk. Youse
understand?"
Tom's legs had spread themselves apart, his black-gloved hands had
placed themselves upon his hips, and his brown eyes were looking hard
defiance from beneath his cap's peak. "I don't suppose you did like it,"
he said calmly. "If I remember rightly I didn't say it for the purpose
of pleasing you."
"Youse're goin' to keep your mouth goin' then?"
"My mouth's my own."
"Mebbe youse knows what happened to a few other gents that started on
the road youse're travelin'?" the steely voice went on insinuatingly.
"Duncan--Smith--O'Malley?"
"Threats, huh?" Tom's anger began to pass his control. He sneered. "Save
'em for somebody that's afraid of you!"
The cigar that had so far kept its place in Foley's mouth now fell out,
and a few lurid words followed it. "D'youse know I can drive youse clean
out o' New York? Yes, an' fix youse so youse can't get a job in the iron
trade in the country? Except as a scab. Which's just about what you
are!"
The defiant glow in Tom's eyes flared into a blaze of anger. He stepped
up to Foley, his fists still on his hips, and fairly thrust his square
face into the lean one of the walking delegate.
"If you think I'm afraid of you, Buck Foley, or your bunch of toughs,
you're almighty mistaken! I'm going to say what I think about you, and
say it whenever and wherever I please!"
Foley's face tightened. His hands clenched in his pockets. But he
controlled himself. He had the wisdom of a thousand fights,--which is,
never to fight unless you have to, or unless there is something to gain.
"I've got just one thing to say to youse, an' that's all," he said, and
his low, steely voice cut distinctly through the hammer's uproar. "If I
hear any more about your talk,--well, Duncan an' O'Malley'll have some
new company."
He turned about shortly, and stepped along beams to a ladder, and down
that; leaving Tom struggling with a furious desire to follow and close
with him. Out of the building, he made for the office of Mr. Driscoll as
rapidly as street car could take him. On leaving the elevator in the
Broadway building he strode to a door marked "Driscoll &
Co.--Private--Enter Next Door," and without hesitation turned the knob.
He found himself in a small room, very neat, whose principal furniture
was a letter file and a desk bearing a typewriter. Over the desk was a
brown print of William Morris. The room had two inner doors, one, as
Foley knew, opening into the general offices, and the other into Mr.
Driscoll's private room.
A young woman rose from the desk. "What is it?" she asked, with a
coldness drawn forth by his disregard of the sign on the door.
"I want to see Mr. Driscoll. Tell him Foley wants to speak to him."
She went through Mr. Driscoll's door, and Foley heard his name
announced. There was a hesitant silence, then he heard the words, "Well,
let him come in, Miss Arnold."
Miss Arnold immediately reappeared. "Will you step in, please."
As he entered the door Foley put on his hat, which he had removed in the
presence of the secretary, pulling it aggressively down over one eye.
"Hello, Driscoll," he greeted the contractor, who had swung about from a
belittered desk; and he closed the door behind him.
Mr. Driscoll pointed to a chair, but his face deepened a shade. Foley
seated himself, and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his
bony hands clasped.
"Well, what can I do for you?" queried Mr. Driscoll shortly.
Foley knew his man. He had met Mr. Driscoll many times at conferences
with the Executive Committee of the Iron Employers' Association, and had
read him as though he were large print. He noted with satisfaction the
color in the contractor's face.
The walking delegate spoke with extreme deliberation. "I come around,
_Mister_ Driscoll, to find out what the hell youse mean by workin' scabs
on that St. Etienne job. Youse signed an agreement to work only union
men, but if I didn't watch youse, youse'd have your work alive with
scabs. Now, damn youse, unless youse get them scabs off that job an' do
it quicker'n youse ever done anything before, youse'll wish youse had!"
Foley made no mistake in his pre-calculation of the effect of this
speech. Mr. Driscoll sprang to his feet, with a trembling that his
reddish-gray whiskers exaggerated. His glasses tumbled from his nose,
and his feet scrunched them unnoted into the rug. "If there's a scab on
the job, I didn't know it. If those men're scabs Duffy must have made a
mistake. If----"
"If one o' youse bosses ever breaks a contract, oh, it's always a
mistake!"
"If you'd come around here and talked like a gentleman, I'd had 'em off
inside of an hour," Mr. Driscoll roared. "But, by thunder, I don't let
any walking delegate insult me and tell me what I've _got_ to do!"
"Then youse ain't goin' to fire the scabs?"
"Not till hell freezes over!"
Mr. Driscoll's eyes clicked, and he banged his pudgy fist upon his desk.
"Then the men'll go back to work on the day hell freezes over," returned
Foley, rising to go. "But I have an idea youse'll want to see me a day
or two before then. I've come to youse this time. The next time we talk,
youse'll come to me. There's my card." And he went out with the
triumphant feeling of the man who can guide events.
At ten o'clock the next morning he clambered again to the top of the St.
Etienne Hotel. The Italian and Swede were still at work.
"Lay down your tools, boys!" he called out to the two gangs. "The job's
struck!"
The men crowded around him, demanding information.
"Driscoll won't fire the scabs," he explained.
"Kick 'em off,--settle it that-a-way!" growled one of the men. "We
can't afford to lose wages on account o' two scabs."
"That'd only settle this one case. We've got to settle the scab question
with Driscoll for good an' all. It's hard luck, boys, I know," he said
sympathetically, "but we can't do nothin' but strike. We've got to lick
Driscoll into shape."
Leaving the men talking hotly as they changed their clothes for the
street, Foley went down the ladder to bear the same message and the same
comfort to the riveters.
The next morning the general contractor for the building got Mr.
Driscoll on the telephone. "Why aren't you getting that ironwork up?" he
demanded.
Mr. Driscoll started into an explanation of his trouble with Foley, but
the general contractor cut him short. "I don't care what the trouble is.
What I care about is that you're not getting that ironwork up. Get your
men right back to work."
"How?" queried Mr. Driscoll sarcastically.
"That's your business!" answered the general contractor, and rang off.
Mr. Driscoll talked it over with the "Co.," a young fellow of thirty or
thereabouts, of polished manner and irreproachable tailoring. "See
Foley," Mr. Berman advised.
"It's simply a game for graft!"
"That may be," said the junior partner. "But what can you do?"
"I won't pay graft!"
Mr. Berman shrugged his shapely shoulders and withdrew. Mr. Driscoll
paced his office floor, tugged at his whiskers, and used some language
that at least had the virtue of being terse. With the consequence, that
he saw there was nothing for him but to settle as best as he could. In
furious mortification he wrote to Foley asking him to call. The answer
was a single scrawled sentence: "If you want to see me, I live at--West
One Hundred and Fifteenth Street."
The instant after this note was read its fragments were in Mr.
Driscoll's waste basket. He'd suffer a sulphurous fate before he'd do
it! But the general contractor descended upon him in person, and there
was a bitter half hour. The result was that late Saturday afternoon Mr.
Driscoll locked his pride in his desk, put his checkbook in his pocket,
and set forth for the number on West One Hundred and Fifteenth Street.
A large woman, of dark voluptuous beauty, with a left hand like a
jeweller's tray, answered his knock and led him into the parlor, on
whose furnishings more money than taste had been spent. The room was a
war of colors, in which the gilt of the picture frames, enclosing
oblongs of high-hued sentiment, had the best of the conflict, and in
which baby blue, showing in pictures, upholstery and a fancy lamp shade,
was an easy second, despite its infantility.
Foley sat in a swinging rocker, reading an evening paper, his coat off,
his feet in slippers. He did not rise. "Hello! Are they havin' zero
weather in hell?"
Mr. Driscoll passed the remark. "I guess you know what I'm here for."
"If youse give me three guesses, I might be able to hit it. But chair
bottom's as cheap as carpet. Set down."
Mr. Driscoll sank into an upholstered chair, and a skirmish began
between his purple face and the baby blue of the chair's back. "Let's
get to business," he said.
"Won't youse have a drink first?" queried Foley, with baiting
hospitality.
Mr. Driscoll's hands clenched the arms of the chair. "Let's get to
business."
"Well,--fire away."
"You know what it is."
"I can't say's I do," Foley returned urbanely.
The contractor's hands dug again into the upholstery. "About the strike
you called on the St. Etienne."
"Oh, that!--Well?"
Mr. Driscoll gulped down pride and anger and went desperately to the
point. "What'll I have to do to settle it?"
"Um! Le's see. First of all, youse'll fire the scabs?"
"Yes."
"Seems to me I give youse the chance to do that before, an' end it right
there. But it can't end there now. There's the wages the men's lost.
Youse'll have to pay waitin' time."
"Extortion, you mean," Mr. Driscoll could not refrain from saying.
"Waitin' time," Foley corrected blandly.
"Well,--how much?" Mr. Driscoll remarked to himself that he knew what
part of the "waiting time" the men would get.
Foley looked at the ceiling and appeared to calculate. "The waitin'
time'll cost youse an even thousand."
"What!"
"If youse ain't learnt your lesson yet, youse might as well go back." He
made as if to resume his paper.
Mr. Driscoll swallowed hard. "Oh, I'll pay. What else can I do? You've
got me in a corner with a gun to my head."
Foley did not deny the similitude. "youse're gettin' off dirt cheap."
"When'll the men go back to work?"
"The minute youse pay, the strike's off."
Mr. Driscoll drew out his check-book, and started to fill in a check
with a fountain pen.
"Hold on there!" Foley cried. "No checks for me."
"What's the matter with a check?"
"Youse don't catch me scatterin' my name round on the back o' checks.
D'youse think I was born yesterday?"
"Where's the danger, since the money's to go to the men for waiting
time?" Mr. Driscoll asked sarcastically.
"It's cash or nothin'," Foley said shortly.
"I've no money with me. I'll bring it some time next week."
"Just as youse like. Only every day raises the price."
Mr. Driscoll made haste to promise to deliver the money Monday morning
as soon as he could get it from his bank. And Foley thereupon promised
to have the men ready to go back to work Monday afternoon. So much
settled, Mr. Driscoll started to leave. He was suffocating.
"Won't youse have a drink?" Foley asked again, at the door.
Mr. Driscoll wanted only to get out of Foley's company, where he could
explode without having it put in the bill. "No," he said curtly.
"Well!--now me, when I got to swallow a pill I like somethin' to wash it
down."
The door slammed, and Mr. Driscoll puffed down the stairs leaving behind
him a trail of language like a locomotive's plume.
Chapter III
THE RISE OF BUCK FOLEY
Tom glared at Foley till the walking delegate had covered half the
distance to the ladder, then he turned back to his supervision, trying
to hide the fires of his wrath. But his soul flamed within him. All that
Foley had just threatened, openly and by insinuation, was within his
power of accomplishment. Tom knew that. And every other man in the union
was as much at his mercy,--and every man's family. And many had suffered
greatly, and all, except Foley's friends, had suffered some. Tom's mind
ran over the injustice Foley had wrought, and over Foley's history and
the union's history during the last few years ... and there was no
sinking of the inward fire.
And yet there was a long period in the walking delegate's history on
which Tom would not have passed harsh judgment. Very early in his
career, in conformity with prevailing custom, Buck Foley had had a
father and a mother. His mother he did not remember at all. After she
had intimated a preference for another man by eloping with him, Buck's
father had become afflicted with almost constant unsteadiness in his
legs, an affliction that had before victimized him only at intervals.
His father he remembered chiefly from having carried a tin pail to a
store around the corner where a red-faced man filled it and handed it
back to him over a high counter; and also from a white scar which even
now his hair did not altogether conceal. One day his father disappeared.
Not long after that Buck went to live in a big house with a great lot of
boys, the little ones in checked pinafores, the big ones in gray suits.
After six years of life here, at the age of twelve, he considered that
he was fit for graduation, and so he went out into the world,--this on a
very dark night when all in the big house were fast asleep.
For three years Buck was a newsboy; sleeping in a bed when he could
afford one, sleeping in hallways, over warm gratings, along the docks,
when he could not; winning all the newsboy's keen knowledge of human
nature. At fifteen the sea fascinated him, and he lived in ships till he
was twenty. Then a sailor's duties began to irk him. He came back to New
York, took the first job that offered, driving a truck, and joined a
political club of young men in a west side ward. Here he found himself.
He rose rapidly to power in the club. Dan McGuire, the boss of the ward,
had to take notice of him. He left his truck for a city job with a
comfortable salary and nothing to do. At twenty-five he was one of
McGuire's closest aids. Then his impatient ambition escaped his control.
He plotted a revolution, which should overthrow McGuire and enthrone
himself. But the Boss had thirty years of political cunning, and behind
him a strong machine. For these Buck was no match. He took again to the
sea.
Buck shipped as second mate on a steamer carrying steel for a great
bridge in South Africa. Five years of authority had unfitted him for the
subordinate position of second mate, and there were many tilts with the
thick-headed captain. The result was that after the steamer had
discharged her cargo Foley quitted his berth and followed the steel into
the interior. The contractors were in sore need of men, and, even though
Foley was not a bridgeman, they gladly gave him a job. His service as a
sailor had fitted him to follow, without a twinge of fear, the most
expert of the bridgemen in their daring clambering about cables and over
narrow steel beams; and being naturally skillful he rapidly became an
efficient workman.
Of the men sent out to this distant job perhaps one-half were union
members. These formed a local branch of their society, and this Foley
was induced to join. He rapidly won to influence and power in the
affairs of the union, finding here the same keen enjoyment in managing
men that he had first tasted in Dan McGuire's ward. After the completion
of this job he worked in Scotland and Brazil, always active in the
affairs of his union. At thirty-two he found himself back in New
York,--a forceful leader ripe for an opportunity.
He had not been in New York a week when he discovered his chance. The
union there was wofully weak--an organization only in name. The
employers hardly gave it a consideration; the members themselves hardly
held it in higher esteem. The men were working ten hours a day for two
dollars; lacking the support of a strong union they were afraid to seek
better terms. As Foley grimly expressed it, "The bosses have got youse
down an' are settin' on your heads." Here in this utter disorganization
Foley perceived his opportunity. He foresaw the extent to which the
erection of steel-frame buildings, then in its beginning, was certain to
develop. His trade was bound to become the "fundamental trade"; until
his union had put up the steel frames the contractors could do
nothing--the other workmen could do nothing. A strongly organized union
holding this power--there was no limit to the concessions it might
demand and secure.
It was a great opportunity. Foley went quietly to work on a job at
twelve dollars a week, and bided his time. At the end of six months he
was elected president and walking delegate of the union. He had no
trouble in securing the offices. No one else wanted them. This was early
in the spring. The first labor he set himself was the thorough
organization of the union and the taking into its ranks of every
ironworker in the city.
The following spring there was a strike. Foley now came for the first
time before the contractors' attention. They regarded him lightly,
having remembrance of his predecessors. But they soon found they were
facing a man who, though uneducated and of ungrammatical speech, was as
keen and powerful as the best of them. The strike was won, and great was
the name of Foley. In the next three years there were two more strikes
for increases in wages, which were won. And the name of Foley waxed
greater.
During these first four years no man could have served the union
better. But here ended the stretch of Foley's history on which Tom would
not have passed harsh judgment; and here began the period whose acts of
corruption and oppression were now moving in burning procession through
Tom's mind. It is a matter of no moment whether Foley or the employers
took the initiative in starting him on the new phase of his career as a
labor leader. It is axiomatic that money is the ammunition of war; among
the employers there were many who were indifferent whether this
ammunition was spent in fighting or in buying. On the other hand,
Foley's training on the street and in Dan McGuire's ward was not such as
to produce an incorruptible integrity. It is only fair to Foley to say
that the first sums he received were in return for services which did
not work any injury or loss to the union. It was easy to excuse to
himself these first lapses. He knew his own worth; he saw that men of
much less capacity in the employ of the bosses were paid big salaries.
The union paid him thirty dollars a week. "Who's hurt if I increase my
salary to something like it ought to be at the expense of the bosses?"
he reasoned; and took the money with an easy conscience.
This first "easy money" made Foley hungry for more. He saw the many
opportunities that existed for acquiring it; he saw where he could
readily create other opportunities. In earlier days he had envied
McGuire the chances that were his. He had no reason to envy McGuire now.
During the first three or four years of his administration there was no
opposition to him within the union. His work was too strenuous to be
envied him by any man. But after the union had become an established
power, and the position of walking delegate one of prominence, a few
ambitious spirits began to aspire to his job. Also there began to be
mutterings about his grafting. A party was formed which secretly busied
itself with a plan to do to him what he had tried to do to Dan McGuire.
He triumphed, as McGuire had triumphed. But the revolution, though
unsuccessful, had a deep lesson for him. It taught him that, unless he
fortified it, his position was insecure. At present he was dependent for
its retention upon the favor of the members; and favor, as he knew, was
not a dependable quantity.
He was determined to remain the walking delegate of the union. He had
made the union, and the position. They were both his by right. He
rapidly took measures to insure himself against the possibility of
overthrow. He became relentless to all opposition. Those who dared talk
were quick to hear from him. Some fared easily--the clever ones who were
not bribe-proof. After being given jobs as foremen, and presented with
neat little sums, they readily saw the justice of Foley's cause. Some,
who were not worth bribing, he intimidated into silence. Those whom he
had threatened and who still talked found themselves out of work and
unable to get new jobs; they were forced into other trades or out of the
city. A few such examples lessened the necessity for such severe action.
Men with families to support perceived the value of a discreet tongue.
These methods were successful in quelling open opposition; but they,
together with the knowledge that Foley was taking money wherever it was
offered, had the effect of rapidly alienating the better element in the
union. This forced him into a close alliance with the rougher members,
who were greatly in the minority. But this minority, never more than
five hundred out of three thousand men, Foley made immensely effective.
He instructed them to make the meetings as disorderly as possible. His
scheme worked to perfection. The better members came less and less
frequently, and soon the meetings were entirely in the hands of the
roughs. As time passed Foley grew more and more jealous of his power,
and more and more harsh in the methods used to guard it. He attached to
himself intimately several of the worst of his followers whom grim
facetiousness soon nominated "The Entertainment Committee." If any one
attacked him now, the bold one did so knowing that he would probably
experience the hospitality of these gentlemen the first dark night he
ventured forth alone.
Such were the conditions behind the acts of tyranny that Tom furiously
overhauled, as he mechanically directed the work. He had considered
these conditions and acts before, but never with such fierceness as now.
Hitherto he had been, as it were, merely one citizen, though a more or
less prominent one, of an oppressed nation; now he, as an individual,
had felt the tyrant's malevolence. He had before talked of the union's
getting rid of Foley as a necessary action, and only the previous night
he had gone to the length of denouncing Foley in open meeting, an
adventurous act that had not been matched in the union for two years.
Perhaps, in the course of time, his patriotism alone would have pushed
him to take up arms against Foley. But now to his patriotic indignation
there was added the selfish wrath of the outraged individual,--and the
sum was an impulse there was no restraining.
Tom was not one who, in a hot moment, for the assuagement of his wrath,
would bang down his fist and consign himself to a purpose. Here,
however, was a case where wrath made the same demand that already had
been made by cool, moral judgment--the dethronement of Foley. And Tom
felt in himself the power for its accomplishment. He was well furnished
with self-confidence,--lacking which any man is an engine without fire.
During the last five years--that is, since he was twenty-five, when he
began to look upon life seriously--the knowledge had grown upon him that
he was abler, and of stronger purpose, than his fellows. He had accepted
this knowledge quietly, as a fact. It had not made him presumptuous;
rather it had imposed upon him a serious sense of duty.
He considered the risks of a fight against Foley. Personal
danger,--plenty of that, yes,--but his hot mind did not care for that.
Financial loss,--he drew back from thinking what his wife would say;
anyhow, there were his savings, which would keep them for awhile, if
worst came to worst.
As the men were leaving the building at the end of the day's work, Tom
drew Barry and Pete to one side. "I know you fellows don't like Foley a
lot," he began abruptly, "but I don't know how far you're willing to
go. For my part, I can't stand for him any longer. Can't we get together
to-night and have a talk?"
To this Barry and Pete agreed.
"Where'bouts?" asked Barry.
Tom hesitated; and he was thinking of his wife when he said, "How about
your house?"
"Glad to have you," was Barry's answer.
Chapter IV
A COUNCIL OF WAR
Tom lived in the district below West Fourteenth Street, where, to the
bewildered explorer venturing for the first time into that region, the
jumbled streets seem to have been laid out by an egg-beater.
It was almost six o'clock when, hungry and wrathful, he thrust his
latch-key into the door of his four-room flat. The door opened into
blackness. He gave an irritated groan and groped about for matches, in
the search striking his hip sharply against the corner of the dining
table. A match found and the gas lit, he sat down in the sitting-room to
await his wife's coming. From the mantel a square, gilded clock, on
which stood a knight in full armor, counted off the minutes with
irritating deliberation. It struck six; no Maggie. Tom's impatience
rapidly mounted, for he had promised to be at Barry's at quarter to
eight. He was on the point of going to a restaurant for his dinner,
when, at half-past six, he heard the fumble of a latch-key in the lock,
and in came his wife, followed by their son, a boy of four, crying from
weariness.
She was a rather large, well-formed, and well-featured young woman, and
was showily dressed in the extreme styles of the cheap department
stores. She was pretty, with the prettiness of cheap jewelry.
Tom rose as she carefully placed her packages on the table. "You really
decided to come home, did you?"
"Oh, I know I'm late," she said crossly, breathing heavily. "But it
wasn't my fault. I started early enough. But there was such a mob in the
store you couldn't get anywhere. If you'd been squeezed and pushed and
punched like I was in the stores and in the street cars, well, you
wouldn't say a word."
"Of course you had to go!"
"I wasn't going to miss a bargain of that kind. You don't get 'em
often."
Tom gazed darkly at the two bulky packages, the cause of his delayed
dinner. "Can I have something to eat,--and quick?"
By this time her hat and jacket were off. "Just as soon as I get back my
breath," she said, and began to undo the packages.
The little boy came to her side.
"I'm so hungry, ma," he whined. "Gimme a piece."
"Dinner'll be ready in a little while," she answered carelessly.
"But I can't wait!"--and he began to cry.
Maggie turned upon him sharply. "If you don't stop that bawling, Ferdie,
you shan't have a bite of dinner."
The boy cried all the louder.
"Oh, you!" she ejaculated; and took a piece of coarse cake from the
cupboard and handed it to him. "Now do be still!"
Ferdinand filled his mouth with the cake, and she returned to the
packages. "I been wanting something to fill them empty places at the
ends of the mantel this long time, and when I saw the advertisement in
the papers this morning, I said it was just the thing.... Now there!"
Out of one pasteboard box she had taken a dancing Swiss shepherdess, of
plaster, pink and green and blue, and out of the other box a dancing
Swiss shepherd. One of these peasants she had put on either side of the
knight, at the ends of the mantel.
"Now, don't you like that?"
Tom looked doubtfully at the latest adornment of his home. Somehow, he
didn't just like it, though he didn't know why. "I guess it'll do," he
said at length.
"And they were only thirty-nine cents apiece! Now when I get a new tidy
for the mantel,--a nice pink one with flowers. Just you wait!"
"Well,--but let's have dinner first."
"In just a minute." With temper restored by sight of her art treasures,
Maggie went into the bedroom and quickly returned in an old dress. The
dinner of round steak, fried potatoes and coffee was ready in a very
short time. The steak avenged its hasty preparation by presenting one
badly burnt side. But Tom ate the poor dinner without complaint. He was
used to poor dinners; and his only desire was to get away and to
Barry's.
Once during the meal he looked at his wife, a question in his mind.
Should he tell her? But his eyes fell back to his plate and he said
nothing. She must know some time, of course--but he didn't want the
scene now.
But she herself approached uncomfortably near the subject. She had
glanced at him hesitatingly several times while they were eating; as he
was rising from the table she began resolutely: "I met Mrs. Jones this
afternoon. She told me what you said about Foley last night at the
meeting. Her husband told her."
Tom paused.
"There's no sense doing a thing of that kind," she went on. "Here we are
just beginning to have things a little comfortable. You know well enough
what Foley can do to you if you get him down on you."
"Well?" Tom said guardedly.
"Well, don't you be that foolish again. We can't afford it."
"I'll see about it." He went into the sitting-room and returned with hat
and overcoat on. "I'm going over to Barry's for awhile--on some
business," he said, and went out.
Barry and Pete, who boarded with the Barrys, were waiting in the
sitting-room when Tom arrived,--and with them sat Mrs. Barry and a boy
of about thirteen and a girl apparently a couple of years younger, the
two children with idle school books in their laps. Mrs. Barry's
sitting-room, also her parlor, would not have satisfied that amiable
lady, the president of the Society for Instructing Wage-Earners in House
Furnishing. There was a coarse red Smyrna rug in the middle of the
floor; a dingy, blue-flowered sofa, with three chairs to match (the
sort seen in the windows of cheap furniture stores on bargain days,
marked "Nineteen dollars for Set"); a table in one corner, bearing a
stack of photographs and a glass vase holding up a bunch of pink paper
roses; a half dozen colored prints in gilt-and-white plaster frames. The
room, however, quite satisfied Mrs. Barry, and the amiable president of
the S. I. W. E. H. F. would needs have given benign approval to the
room's utter cleanliness.
Mrs. Barry, a big, red-faced woman, greeted Tom heartily. Then she
turned to the boy and girl. "Come on, children. We've got to chase
ourselves. The men folks want to talk." She drove the two before her
wide body into the kitchen.
Tom plunged into the middle of what he had to say. "We've talked about
Foley a lot--all of us. We've said other unions are managed decently,
honestly--why shouldn't ours be? We've said we didn't like Foley's
bulldozing ways. We didn't like the tough gang he's got into the union.
We didn't like the rough-house meetings. We didn't like his grafting.
We've said we ought to raise up and kick him out. And then, having said
that much, we've gone back to work--me, you and all the rest of us--and
he's kept on bullying us, and using the union as a lever to pry off
graft. I'm dead sick of this sort of business. For one, I'm tired
talking. I'm ready for doing."
"Sure, we're all sick o' Foley. But what d'you think we ought to do?"
queried Barry.
"Fire him out," Tom answered shortly.
"It only takes three words to say that," said Pig Iron. "But how?"
"Fire him out!" Tom was leaning forward in his chair, his elbows on his
knees, his big, red hands interlocked. There was determination in his
square face, in the set of his powerful red neck, in the hunch of his
big shoulders. He gazed steadily at the two men for a brief space.
"Boys, my mind's made up. I'm going to fight him."
Pete and Barry looked at him in amazement.
"You're goin' to fight Buck Foley!" cried Barry.
"You're jokin'!" said Pig Iron.
"I'm in dead earnest."
"You know what'll happen to you if you lose?" queried Barry.
"Yes. And I know Foley may not even give me a chance to lose," Tom added
grimly.
"You've got nerve to burn, Tom," said Pig Iron. "It's not an easy
proposition. Myself, I'd as soon put on the gloves an' mix it up with
the devil. An' to spit it right out on the carpet, Tom, I think Buck's
done the union a lot o' good."
"You're right there, Pete. No one knows that better than I do. As you
fellows know, I left town eight years ago and was bridging in the West
four years. I was pretty much of a kid when I went away, but I was old
enough to see the union didn't have enough energy left to die. When I
came back and saw what Foley'd done, I thought he was the greatest thing
that ever happened. If he'd quit right then the union'd 'a' papered the
hall with his pictures. But you know how he's changed since then. The
public knows it, too. Look how the newspapers have been shooting it into
him. I'm not fighting Foley as he was four or five years ago, Pete, but
Foley as he is now."
"There's no denyin' he's so crooked now he can't lay straight in bed,"
Pete admitted.
"We've got to get rid of him some time, haven't we?" Tom went on.
"Yes," the two men conceded.
"Or sooner or later he'll smash the union. That's certain. Now there's
only one way to get rid of him. That's to go out after him, and go after
him hard."
"But it's an awful risk for you, Tom," said Barry.
"Someone's got to take it if we ever get rid of Foley."
"One thing's straight, anyhow," declared Pete. "You're the best man in
the union to go against Foley."
"Of course," said Barry.
Tom did not deny it.
There was a moment's silence. Then Pete asked: "What's your plan?"
"Election comes the first meeting in March. I'm going to run against him
for walking delegate."
"If you care anything for my opinion," said Pete, "here it is: You've
got about as much chance as a snowball in hell."
"You're away off, Pig Iron. You know as well as I do that five-sixths of
the men in the union are against Foley. Why do they stand for him?
Because they're unorganized, and he's got them bluffed out. If those
men got together, Foley'd be the snowball. That's what I'm going to try
to do,--get those men in line."
A door opened, and Mrs. Barry looked in. "I left my glasses somewhere in
there. Will I bother you men much if I look for 'em?"
"Not me," said Tom. "You can stay and listen if you want to."
Mrs. Barry sat down. "I suppose you don't mind tellin' us how you're
goin' to get the men in line," said Pete.
"My platform's going to be an honest administration of the affairs of
the union, and every man to be treated like a man. That's simple enough,
ain't it?--and strong enough? And a demand for more wages. I'm going to
talk these things to every man I meet. If they can kick Foley out, and
get honest management and decent treatment, just by all coming out and
voting, don't you think they're going to do it? They'll all fall in
line."
"That demand for more wages is a good card. Our wage contract with the
bosses expires May first, you know. The men all want more money; they
need it; they deserve it. If I talk for it Foley'll be certain to oppose
it, and that'll weaken him.
"I wanted to talk this over with you fellows to get your opinion. I
thought you might suggest something. But even if you don't like the
scheme, and even if you don't want to join in the fight, I'm going to
stick it out. My mind's made up."
Tom sank back into his chair and waited for the two men to speak.
"Well, your scheme don't sound just like an insane asylum," Pete
admitted. "Count me in."
Tom looked across at Barry. Barry's face was turned down and his hands
were inter-gripped. Tom understood. Barry had been out of work much
during the last three years, and recent illness in the family had
endowed him with debts. If he actively engaged in Tom's movement, and
Foley triumphed, Foley's vengeance would see to it that Barry worked no
more in New York. It was too great a risk to ask of a man situated as
Barry was.
"I understand, Barry," said Tom. "That's all right. Don't you do it."
Barry made no answer.
Mrs. Barry put her hand on her husband's shoulder. "Jim, ain't we goin'
to be in on this fight against Foley?"
"You know why, Mary." There was a catch in his voice.
"Yes. Because of me an' the kids. You, I know you've got as much nerve
as anybody. We're goin' in, Jim. An' if we lose"--she tried to
smile--"why, I ain't much of a consumptive, am I? I'll take in washin'
to help out."
Tom turned his face about. Pete did the same, and their eyes met. Pete's
face was set hard. He growled out something that sounded very much like
an oath.
It was midnight when Tom left. The strike which Foley called on the St.
Etienne Hotel the next day gave him time for much thinking about his
campaign. He acquainted several of the more influential members of the
union with his purpose, asking them to keep secret what he said till he
was ready to begin an open fight. All gave him sympathy, but most of
them hesitated when it came to promising active assistance. "Now if
Foley only couldn't do us out of our jobs, in case you lose, we'd be
right with you. But----" Fear inclined them to let bad enough alone.
This set Tom to thinking again. On Monday evening--that afternoon Foley
had ordered the men back to work on the St. Etienne Hotel--Tom announced
a new plan to Barry and Pete. "We want to get every argument we can to
use on the boys. It struck me we might make some use of the bosses. It's
to their interest, as well as to ours, for us to have the right sort of
delegate. If we could say that the bosses are sick of Foley and want us
to get a decent man, and will guarantee to keep us at work no matter what
Foley says,--that might have influence on some of the weak-kneed
brothers."
"The boys'd say the bosses ain't runnin' the union," said Pete. "If you
get the bosses on your side, the boys'll all stand by Foley."
"I thought of that. That's what'd happen if we got mixed up with anybody
on the Executive Committee of the bosses except Baxter. The boys think
Murphy, Bobbs, and Isaacs are pretty small potatoes, and they think
Driscoll's not on the square. I guess it's a case of the pot calling the
kettle black, but you know what Foley says about Driscoll. But with
Baxter it's different. He's friendly to the union, and the boys know it.
A word from him might help a lot. And he hates Foley, and Foley has no
use for him. I've heard Buck say as much."
"It's worth tryin', anyhow," Pete and Barry agreed.
"Well, I'm going to brace him to-morrow after work," said Tom.
Chapter V
TOM SEEKS HELP FROM THE ENEMY
At the end of work the next day Tom joined the rush of men down the
ladders and the narrow servants' stairways, the only ones in as yet, and
on gaining the street made for the nearest saloon. Five cents invested
in beer secured for him the liberty of the house. He washed himself,
brushed his hair and clothing, and set forth for the office of Baxter &
Co.
Baxter & Co. occupied one side of the tenth floor of a big downtown
office building. Tom found himself in a large waiting-room, divided by a
wooden railing, beyond which at a desk sat an imperious youth in a blue
uniform.
"Is Mr. Baxter in?" Tom inquired.
The uniform noted that Tom's clothes were worn and wrinkled. "He's
busy," it said stiffly.
"Is he in?"
"I s'pose he is."
"Well, you tell him I want to see him. Keating's my name. I'll wait if
he's busy."
The uniform carelessly handed him a slip of paper. "Write down yer name
an' business, an' I'll see if he'll see youse."
With a gleam in his eyes Tom took the printed form, wrote his name and
"on business of the Iron Workers' Union."
The boy accepted the slip and calmly read it. Tom gave him a push that
sent him spinning. "Get a move on you, there! I'm in a hurry."
The boy gave a startled look back, and walked quickly down an alley that
ran between two rows of offices. Tom sat down in one of the
leather-bottomed chairs and with a show of coolness, but with inward
excitement, waited his interview with Mr. Baxter. He had never met an
employer in his life, save regarding his own work or as a member of a
strike committee. And now the first he was to meet in a private
interview was the most prominent employer in his trade--head of the big
firm of Baxter & Co., and president of the Iron Employers' Association.
Several minutes passed before the uniform reappeared and led Tom into
Mr. Baxter's office, a large, airy room with red burlap walls, cherry
woodwork, cherry chairs, a long cherry table, a flat-top cherry desk.
The room was absolutely without attempt at decoration, and was as clean
as though it had been swept and dusted the minute before. The only piece
of paper in the room was an architect's drawing of a façade, which Mr.
Baxter was examining.
Mr. Baxter did not look up immediately. Tom, standing with hat in hand,
was impressed with his busyness. He was not yet acquainted with the
devices by which men of affairs fortify their importance.
Suddenly Mr. Baxter wheeled about in his chair. "I beg your pardon. Be
seated. What can I do for you?"
He was perhaps forty-five or fifty--slender, of high, narrow brow,
steely eyes, and Vandyke beard. His neatness was equal to that of his
office; he looked as though he were fresh from barber, haberdasher and
tailor. Tom understood the success of the man in the first glance at his
face: he was as quick to act upon the opportunity as a steel trap.
Tom sat down in one of the polished chairs, and affected composure by
throwing his left arm across the cherry table. "I belong to the Iron
Workers' Union. To come right to the point----"
"I shall be obliged if you will. I'm really very busy."
Mr. Baxter's tone was a model of courtesy. A more analytical man than
Tom might have felt the distinction that it was the courtesy a gentlemen
owes himself, not the courtesy one man owes another. Tom merely felt a
vague antagonism, and that put him at his ease.
"I'm busy, too," he returned quietly. "What I've come to see you about
is a matter which I consider of great importance to the bosses and the
union. And I've come to see you because I know you are friendly to the
union."
"I believe that in most cases the interests of the employers and the
interests of the union are practically the same."
"And also because you don't like Foley."
Mr. Baxter fingered his narrow watch chain a moment. "So you've come to
see me about Mr. Foley?"
"Yes. There's no use going into details with you, Mr. Baxter. You know
the sort Foley is as well as I do. He bullies the union. That's nothing
to you. But he's not on the square with the bosses. That is. As you said
awhile ago, the interests of the bosses and the union are the same. It's
to the interest of both to get rid of Foley. That's so, ain't it?"
Mr. Baxter's face was inscrutable. "You're going to turn him out then?"
"We're going to try to."
"And what will be your policy then?--if you don't mind my asking it."
"To run things on the square."
"A praiseworthy purpose. Of course you'll put in a square man as
delegate then."
"I'm going to run myself."
Tom thought he saw a significant look pass across Mr. Baxter's face.
"Not because I'm anxious for his job," he hastened to explain. "But
somebody's got to run against him."
Mr. Baxter nodded slightly. "I see. Not a very popular risk." His keen
eyes never wavered from Tom's face. "How do you propose to defeat Foley? But
don't tell me anything you don't want to."
Tom outlined his plans for organizing the better element against Foley.
"That sounds feasible," was Mr. Baxter's comment when Tom had concluded.
His eyes were still fastened on Tom's face. "And after you win, there'll
be a strike?"
This question, asked quietly but with electrical quickness, caught Tom
unprepared. He floundered an instant. "We've got to bridge two or three
rivers before we come to that one," he answered.
Mr. Baxter hardly moved an eyelash. "That's obvious. And now, aside from
the benefit which we are to secure by the change, how does your plan
concern me?"
"Since you are going to profit by the fight, if we win, I thought you
might help us. And you can do it easy enough. One thing that'll keep a
lot of the members from joining in the fight is that they're afraid, if
Foley wins out, he'll get 'em all fired. Now if you'll simply guarantee
that you'll stand by the men, why, they'll all come out against Foley
and we'll beat him five to one. There'll be no chance for us to lose."
Mr. Baxter's white brow wrinkled in thought. Tom waited his words in
suspense. At length he spoke.
"You will readily realize, Mr. Keating, that it is an almost
unprecedented step for us to take such a part in the affairs of a union.
Your suggestion is something I must think about."
Tom had been certain Mr. Baxter would fall in with his scheme
enthusiastically. It required so little, merely his word, and assured so
much. Mr. Baxter's judicial reception of his plan shot him through with
disappointment.
"What, don't it appeal to you?" he cried.
"It certainly seems full of promise."
"It will clear us of Foley--certain! And it is to the interest of both
of us that the union be run on the square."
"That's true,--very true. But the most I can say to you now, Mr.
Keating, is that I'll take the matter under advisement. Come to see me
again in a few days."
Mr. Baxter began to finger the drawing on his desk, whereby Tom knew the
interview was at an end. Greatly dashed, but somewhat reassured by the
contractor's last words, he said good-afternoon and withdrew. The
uniform respectfully opened the gate in the railing. In the uniform's
book of wisdom it was writ down that anyone who could be closeted with
your boss was deserving of courtesy.
The instant the office door closed on Tom's back Mr. Baxter quickly rose
and paced the floor for several minutes. Then he sat down at his desk,
took a sheet of paper from a drawer, and dashed off a note to Foley.
Mr. Baxter did not rise to greet Foley when the walking delegate entered
his office the next afternoon. "Mr. Foley," he said, with a short nod of
his head.
"Youse guessed my name," said Foley, cooly helping himself to a chair.
"What's doin'?"
The two men watched each other narrowly, as might two enemies who have
established a truce, yet who suspect treachery on the part of the other.
There was a distant superiority in the manner of Mr. Baxter,--and also
the hardly concealed strain of the man who, from policy or breeding,
would be polite where he loathes. Foley, tilted back in his chair,
matched this manner with an air of defiant self-assertion.
Mr. Baxter rapidly sketched the outline of what Tom had said to him.
"And so Keating come to youse for help," grinned Foley. "That ain't
bad!"
Mr. Baxter did not recognize Foley's equality by smiling. "I thought it
to your interest to let you know this at once, for----"
"And to your interest, too."
"I knew you were not particularly desirous of having Mr. Keating
elected," he continued.
"I'm just about as anxious as youse are," said Foley promptly. "Anyhow,"
he added carelessly, "I already knew what youse told me." Which he did
not.
"Then my sending for you and telling you has served no purpose." The
coldness of his voice placed a wide distance between himself and the
walking delegate.
Foley perceived the distance, and took a vindictive pleasure in bridging
it with easy familiarity. "Not at all, Baxter. It gives youse a chance
to show how much youse like me, an' how much youse've got the interest
o' the union at heart."
The lean, sarcastic face nettled Mr. Baxter. "I think my reputation
speaks for my interest in the union," he said stiffly.
"Your interest in the union!" Foley laughed.
No man had ever seen Mr. Baxter lose his self-control; but he was as
near losing it now as he had ever been, else he would not have made so
weak a rejoinder.
"My reputation speaks for my interest," he repeated. "You won't find a
man in your union but that'll say I'm the union's friend."
Foley laughed again--a harsh, biting laugh. "An' why do they say it, eh?
Because I told 'em so. An' youse've got the nerve, Baxter, to sit there
an' talk that rot to me!--me, the man that made youse!"
"Made me!"
Foley's heart leaped to see the wrathful color flame in the white cheek
of the suave and collected Mr. Baxter--to see the white shapely hands
twitch.
"Yes, made youse!" And he went on with his grim pleasure. "Youse're
doin' twice the business youse were three years ago. Why did youse get
the contracts for the Atwell building and the Sewanee Hotel--the two
jobs that put youse at the head o' things in New York? Because Driscoll,
Bobbs, an' some o' the others had failed to get the jobs they were
workin' on done in contract time. An' why didn't they get done on time?
Because youse didn't want 'em to get through on time. I saw that they
got bum men, who made mistakes,--an' I give 'em their bellyful o'
strikes."
"You didn't do these things out of love for me," Mr. Baxter put in
meaningly. He was getting himself in hand again.
"Sure, I didn't,--not any more'n youse told me about Keating for love o'
me."
Foley went on. "The men who want buildings put up have found youse get
through on time, an' the others don't--so youse get the business. Why do
youse get through on time? Because I see youse get the fastest men in
the union. An' because I see youse don't have any labor trouble."
"Neither of which you do solely for love."
"Sure not. Now don't youse say again I haven't made youse. An' don't
give me that hot air about bein' friendly to the union. Three years ago
youse seen clearer than the others that youse bosses was bound to lose
the strike. Youse'd been fightin' the union till then, an' not makin'
any more'n the rest o' the bosses. So youse tried a new game. Youse led
the other bosses round to give in, an' got the credit o' bein' a friend
o' the union. I know how much youse like the union!"
"Pardon me if I fail to see the purpose of all this retrospection," said
Mr. Baxter sarcastically.
"I just wanted to remind youse that I'm on to youse from hair to
toenails--that's all," Foley answered calmly.
"I think it would be wiser to confine our conversation to the matter in
hand," said Mr. Baxter coldly. "Mr. Keating said he was certain to beat
you. What chance does he have of being elected?"
"The same as youse."
"And a strike,--how about that?"
"It follows if I'm elected, don't it, there'll not be any strike."
"That's according to our agreement," said Mr. Baxter.
"No," said Foley, as he rose, "Keating ain't goin' to trouble youse
much." A hard look came over his face. "Nor me."
Chapter VI
IN WHICH FOLEY PLAYS WITH TWO MICE
Foley left Mr. Baxter's office with the purpose of making straight for
the office of Mr. Driscoll; but his inborn desire to play with the mouse
caused him to change the direct road to an acute angle having at its
apex the St. Etienne Hotel. He paused a moment to look up at the great
black skeleton,--a lofty scaffolding that might have been erected for
some mural painter ambitious to fresco his fame upon the sky. He saw the
crane swing a beam to its place between two of the outside columns, and
saw a man step upon its either end to bolt it to its place. Suddenly the
crane jerked up the beam, and the men frantically threw their arms
around it. As suddenly the crane lowered it. It struck upon the head of
a column. Foley saw one man fly from the beam, catch hold of the end of
a board that extended over the edge of the building, hang there; saw the
beam, freed in some manner from the pulley hook, start down, ridden by
one man; and then saw it come whirling downward alone.
"Look out!" he shouted with all his lungs.
Pedestrians rushed wildly from beneath the shed which extended, as a
protection to them, over the sidewalk. Horses were jerked rearing
backwards. The black beam crashed through the shed and through the pine
sidewalk. Foley dashed inside and for the ladder.
Up on the great scaffolding hands had seized the wrists of the pendant
man and lifted him to safety. All were now leaning over the platform's
edge, gazing far down at the ragged hole in the shed.
"D'you see Pete?" Tom asked at large, in a strained voice.
There were several noes.
"That was certainly the last o' Pig Iron," muttered one of the gang.
He was not disputed.
"It wasn't my fault," said the signalman, as pale as paper. "I didn't
give any wrong signals. Someone below must 'a' got caught in the rope."
"I'm going down," said Tom; and started rapidly for the ladder's
head--to be met with an ascending current of the sort of English story
books ascribe to pirates. Pete's body followed the words so closely as
to suggest a possible relation between the two. Tom worked Pete's hand.
The men crowded up.
"Now who the"--some pirate words--"done that?" Pete demanded.
"It was all an accident," Tom explained.
"But I might 'a' been kilt!"
"Sure you might," agreed Johnson sympathetically.
"How is it you weren't?" Tom asked.
"The beam, in whirlin' over, swung the end I was on into the floor
below. I grabbed a beam an' let it travel alone. That's all."
Foley, breathing deeply from his rapid climb, emerged this instant from
the flooring, and walked quickly to the group. "Anybody kilt?" he asked.
The particulars of the accident were given him. "Well, boys, youse see
what happens when youse got a foreman that ain't onto his job."
Tom contemptuously turned his back and walked away.
"I don't see why Driscoll don't fire him," growled Jake.
"Who knows what'll happen!" Foley turned a twisted, knowing look about
the group. "He's been talkin' a lot!"
He walked over to where Tom stood watching the gang about the north
crane. "I'm dead onto your game," he said, in a hard, quiet voice, his
eyes glittering.
Tom was startled. He had expected Foley to learn of his plan, but
thought he had guarded against such an early discovery. "Well?" he said
defiantly.
Foley began to play with his mouse. "I guess youse know things'll begin
to happen." He greedily watched Tom's face for signs of inward
squirming. "Remember the little promise I made youse t'other day? Buck
Foley usually keeps his promises, don't he--hey?"
But the mouse refused to be played with. "The other beam, boys," it
called out to three men, and strode away toward them.
Foley watched Tom darkly an instant, and then turned sharply about. At
the ladder's head Jake stopped him.
"Get him fired, Buck. Here's your chance to get me that foreman's job
you promised me."
"We'll see," Foley returned shortly, and passed down the ladder and
along the other leg of the angle to the office of Driscoll & Co. He gave
his name to Miss Arnold. She brought back the message that he should
call again, as Mr. Driscoll was too busy to see him.
"Sorry, miss, but I guess I'm as busy as he is. I can't come again." And
Foley brushed coolly past her and entered Mr. Driscoll's office.
"Good-afternoon, Mr. Driscoll," he said, showing his yellow teeth in a
smile, and helping himself to a chair. "Nice afternoon, ain't it?"
Mr. Driscoll wheeled angrily about in his chair. "I thought I sent word
to you I was too busy to see you?"
"So youse did, Mr. Driscoll. So youse did."
"Well, I meant it!" He turned back to his desk.
"I s'pose so," Foley said cheerfully. He tilted back easily in his
chair, and crossed his legs. "But, youse see, I could hardly come again,
an' I wanted very much to see youse."
Mr. Driscoll looked as though he were going to explode. But fits of
temper at a thousand dollars a fit were a relief that he could afford
only now and then. He kept himself in hand, though the effort it cost
him was plain to Foley.
"What d'you want to see me about? Be in a hurry. I'm busy."
The point of Foley's tongue ran gratified between his thin lips, as his
eyes took in every squirm of this cornered mouse. "In the first place, I
come just in a social way. I wanted to return the calls youse made on me
last week. Youse see, I been studyin' up etiquette. Gettin' ready to
break into the Four Hundred."
"And in the second place?" snapped Mr. Driscoll.
Foley stepped to the office door, closed it, and resumed his back-tilted
seat. "In the second place, I thought I'd like to talk over one little
point about the St. Etienne job."
Mr. Driscoll drew a check-book out of a pigeon-hole and dipped his pen.
"How much this time?"
The sarcasm did not touch Foley. He made a wide negative sweep with his
right arm. "What I'm goin' to tell youse won't cost youse a cent. It's
as free as religion." The point of red again slipped between his lips.
"Well?--I said I was busy."
"Well, here it is: Don't youse think youse got a pretty bum foreman on
the St. Etienne job?"
"What business is that of yours?"
"Won't youse talk in a little more of a Christian spirit, Mr. Driscoll?"
It was half a minute before Mr. Driscoll could speak in any kind of a
spirit. "Will you please come to the point!"
"Why, I'm there already," the walking delegate returned sweetly. "As I
was sayin', don't youse think your foreman on the St. Etienne job is a
pretty bum outfit?"
"Keating?--I never had a better."
"D'youse think so? Now I was goin' to suggest, in a friendly way, that
youse get another man in his place."
"Are you running my business, or am I?"
"If youse'd only talk with a little more Christian----"
The eyes clicked. The members of the church to which Mr. Driscoll
belonged would have stuffed fingers into their horrified ears at the
language in which Foley was asked to go to a place that was being
prepared for him.
Foley was very apologetic. "I'm too busy now, an' I don't get my
vacation till August. Then youse ain't goin' to take my advice?"
"No! I'm not!"
The walking delegate stopped purring. He leaned forward, and the claws
pushed themselves from out their flesh-pads. "Let's me and youse make a
little bet on that, Mr. Driscoll. Shall we say a thousand a side?"
Driscoll's eyes and Foley's battled for a moment. "And if I don't do
it?" queried Mr. Driscoll, abruptly.
"I don't like to disturb youse by talkin' about unpleasant things. It
would be too bad if you didn't do it. Youse really couldn't afford any
more delays on the job, could youse?"
Mr. Driscoll made no reply.
Foley stood up, again purring. "It's really good advice, ain't it? I'll
send youse round a good man in the mornin' to take his place. Good-by."
As Foley passed out Mr. Driscoll savagely brushed the papers before him
to one side of his desk, crushing them into a crumpled heap, and sat
staring into the pigeon-holes. He sent for Mr. Berman, who after
delivering an opinion in favor of Foley's proposition, departed for his
own office, pausing for a moment to lean over the desk of the fair
secretary. Presently, with a great gulp, Mr. Driscoll touched a button
on his desk and Miss Arnold appeared within the doorway. She was
slender, but not too slender. Her heavy brown hair was parted in the
middle and fell over either end of her low, broad forehead. The face was
sensitive, sensible, intellectual. Persons chancing into Mr. Driscoll's
office for the first time wondered how he had come by such a secretary.
"Miss Arnold, did you ever see a jelly fish?" he demanded.
"Yes."
"Well, here's another."
"I can't say I see much family resemblance," smiled Miss Arnold.
"It's there, all right. We ain't got any nerve."
"It seems to me you are riding the transmigration of soul theory at a
pretty hard pace, Mr. Driscoll. Yesterday, when you upset the bottle of
ink, you were a bull in a china shop, you know."
"When you know me a year or two longer, you'll know I'm several sorts of
dumb animals. But I didn't call you to give you a natural history
lecture. Get Duffy on the 'phone, will you, and tell him to send Keating
around as soon as he can. Then come in and take some letters that I want
you to let me have just as quick as you can get them off."
Two hours later Tom appeared in Miss Arnold's office. She had seen him
two or three times when he had come in on business, and had been struck
by his square, open face and his confident bearing. She now greeted him
with a slight smile. "Mr. Driscoll is waiting for you," she said; and
sent him straight on through the next door.
Mr. Driscoll asked Tom to be seated and continued to hold his bulging
eyes on a sheet of paper which he scratched with a pencil. Tom, with a
sense of impending disaster, sat waiting for his employer to speak.
At length Mr. Driscoll wheeled about abruptly. "What d'you think of
Foley?"
"I've known worse men," Tom answered, on his guard.
"You must have been in hell, then! You think better of him than I do.
And better than he thinks of you. He's just been in to see me. He wants
me to fire you."
Tom had half-guessed this from the moment Duffy had told him Mr.
Driscoll wanted him, but nevertheless he was startled by its
announcement in words. He let several seconds pass, the while he got
hold of himself, then asked in a hard voice: "And what are you going to
do?"
Mr. Driscoll knew what he was going to do, but his temper insisted on
gratification before he told his plan. "What can I do?" he demanded
testily. "It's your fault--the union's fault. And I don't have any
sympathy to waste for anything that happens to any of you. Why don't you
put a decent man in as your business agent?"
Tom passed all this by. "So you're going to fire me?"
"What else can I do?" Mr. Driscoll reiterated.
"Hasn't my work been satisfactory?"
"It isn't a question of work. If it's any satisfaction to you, I'll say
that I never had a foreman that got as much or as good work out of the
men."
"Then you're firing me because Foley orders you to?" There were both
pity and indignation in Tom's voice.
Mr. Driscoll had expected to put his foreman on the defensive; instead,
he found himself getting on that side. "If you want it right out, that's
it. But what can I do? I'm held up."
"Do?" Tom stood up before his employer, neck and face red, eyes
flashing. "Why, fight him!"
"I've tried that"--sarcastically--"thanks."
"That's what's the matter with you bosses! You think more of dollars
than you do of self-respect!"
Mr. Driscoll trembled. "Young man, d'you know who you're talking to?"
"I do!" Tom cried hotly. "To the man who's firing me because he's too
cowardly to stand up for what's right!"
Mr. Driscoll glared, his eyes clicked. Then he gave a great swallow. "I
guess you're about right. But if I understand the situation, I guess
there's a lot of men in your union that'd rather hold their jobs than
stand up for what's right."
Tom, in his turn, had his fires drawn. "And I guess you're about right,
too," he had to admit.
"I may be a coward," Mr. Driscoll went on, "but if a man puts a gun to
my head and says he'll pull the trigger unless I do what he says, I've
got to do it, that's all. And I rather guess you would, too. But let's
pass this by. I've got a plan. Foley can make me put you off one job,
but he can't make me fire you. Let's see; I'm paying you thirty a week,
ain't I?"
"That's it."
"Well, I'm going to give you thirty-five a week and put you to work in
the shop as a superintendent. Foley can't touch you there,--or me
either. Isn't that all right?" Mr. Driscoll wore a look of half-hearted
triumph.
Tom had regarded Mr. Driscoll so long with dislike that even this
proposal, apparently uttered in good faith, made him suspicious. He
began to search for a hidden motive.
"Well?" queried Mr. Driscoll impatiently.
He could find no dishonest motive. "But if I took the job I'd have to go
out of the union," he said finally.
"It oughtn't break your heart to quit Foley's company."
Tom walked to the window and looked meditatively into the street. Mr.
Driscoll's offer was tempting. It was full of possibilities that
appealed to his ambition. He was confident of his ability to fill this
position, and was confident that he would develop capacity to fill
higher positions. This chance would prove the first of a series of
opportunities that would lead him higher and higher,--perhaps even to
Mr. Driscoll's own desk. He knew he had it in him. And the comfort, even
the little luxuries, the broader opportunities for self-development that
would be his, all appealed to him. And he was aware of the joy this new
career would give to Maggie. But to leave the union--to give up the
fight----
He turned back to Mr. Driscoll. "I can't do it."
"What!" cried the contractor in amazement.
"I can't do it," Tom repeated.
"Do you know what you're throwing away? If you turned out well, and I
know you would, why there'd be no end of chances for advancement. I've
got a lot of weak men on my pay-roll."
"I understand the chance, Mr. Driscoll. But I can't take it. Do you know
why Foley's got it in for me?"
"He don't like you, I suppose."
"Because he's found out, somehow, that I've begun a fight on him, and am
going to try to put him out of business. If I take this job, I've got to
drop the fight. And I'll never do that!" Tom was warming up again. "Do
you know the sort Foley is? I suppose you know he's a grafter?"
"Yes. So does my pocket-book."
"And so does his pocket-book. His grafting alone is enough to fight him
on. But there's the way he treats the union! You know what he's done to
me. Well, he's done that to a lot of others. He's got some of us scared
so we're afraid to breathe. And the union's just his machine. Now d'you
suppose I'm going to quit the union in that shape?" He brought his big
red fist thundering down on the desk before Mr. Driscoll. "No, by God!
I'm going to stick by the boys. I've got a few hundred saved. They'll
last me a while, if I can't get another job. And I'm going to fight that
damned skate till one of us drops!"
Miss Arnold had come in the moment before with letters for Mr.
Driscoll's signature, and had stood through Tom's outburst. She now
handed the letters to Mr. Driscoll, and Tom for the first time noticed
her presence. It struck him full of confusion.
"I beg pardon, miss. I didn't know you were here. I--I hope you didn't
mind what I said."
"If Miss Arnold objects to what you said, I'll fire her!" put in Mr.
Driscoll.
The secretary looked with hardly-concealed admiration at Tom, still
splendid in the dying glow of his defiant wrath. "If I objected, I'd
deserve to be fired," she said. Then she added, smiling: "You may say it
again if you like."
After Miss Arnold had gone out Mr. Driscoll looked at Tom with blinking
eyes. "I suppose you think you're some sort of a hero," he growled.
Tom's sudden confusion had collapsed his indignation. "No, I'm a man
looking for a job," he returned, with a faint smile.
"Well, I'm glad you didn't take the job I offered you. I can't afford to
let fools help manage my business."
Tom took his hat. "I suppose this is all," he said and started for the
door.
"Hold on!" Mr. Driscoll stood up. "Why don't you shake hands with a man,
like a gentleman? There. That's the stuff. I want to say to you,
Keating, that I think you're just about all right. If ever you want a
job with me, just come around and say so and I'll give you one if I have
to fire myself to make a place for you. And if your money gives out, or
you need some to use in your fight, why I ain't throwing much away these
days, but you can get all you want by asking for it."
Chapter VII
GETTING THE MEN IN LINE
His dismissal had been one of the risks Tom had accepted when he had
decided upon war, and though he felt it keenly now that it had come, yet
its chief effect was to intensify his resolution to overturn Buck Foley.
He strode on block after block, with his long, powerful steps, his
resolution gripping him fiercer and fiercer,--till the thought leaped
into his mind: "I've got to tell Maggie."
He stopped as though a cold hand had been laid against his heart; then
walked on more slowly, considering how he should give the news to her.
His first thought was to say nothing of his dismissal for a few days. By
then he might have found another job, and the telling that he had lost
one would be an easy matter. But his second thought was that she would
doubtless learn the news from some of her friends, and would use her
tongue all the more freely because of his attempt at concealment; and,
furthermore, he would be in the somewhat inglorious position of the man
who has been found out. He decided to have done with it at once.
When he entered his flat Maggie looked up in surprise from the tidy on
which she was working. "What! home already!" Then she noticed his face.
"Why, what's the matter?"
Tom drew off his overcoat and threw it upon the couch. "I've been
fired."
She looked at him in astonishment. "Fired!"
"Yes." He sat down, determined to get through with the scene as quickly
as possible.
For the better part of a minute she could not speak. "Fired? What for?"
she articulated.
"It's Foley's work. He ordered Driscoll to."
"You've been talking about Foley some more, then?"
"I have."
Tom saw what he had feared, a hard, accusing look spread itself over her
face. "And you've done that, Tom Keating, after what I, your wife, said
to you only last week? I told you what would happen. I told you Foley
would make us suffer. I told you not to talk again, and you've gone and
done it!" The words came out slowly, sharply, as though it were her
desire to thrust them into him one by one.
Tom began to harden, as she had hardened. But at least he would give her
the chance to understand him. "You know what Foley's like. You know some
of the things he's done. Well, I've made up my mind that we oughtn't to
stand him any longer. I'm going to do what I can to drive him out of the
union."
"And you've been talking this?" she cut in. "Oh, of course you have! No
wonder he got you fired! Oh, my God! I see it all. And you, you never
thought once of your wife or your child!"
"I did, and you'll see when I tell you all," Tom said harshly. "But
would you have me stand for all the dirty things he does?"
"Couldn't you keep out of his way--as I asked you to? Because a wolf's a
wolf, that's no reason why you should jump in his mouth."
"It is if you can do him up. And I'm going to do Foley up. I'm going to
run against him as walking delegate. The situation ain't so bad as you
think," he went on, with a weak effort to appease her. "You think things
look dark, but they're going to be brighter than they ever were. I'll
get another job soon, and after the first of March I'll be walking
delegate. I'm going to beat Buck Foley, sure!"
For a moment the vision of an even greater elevation than the one from
which they were falling made her forget her bitter wrath. Then it
flooded back upon her, and she put it all into a laugh. "You beat Buck
Foley! Oh, my!"
Her ireful words he had borne with outward calm; he had learned they
were borne more easily, if borne calmly. But her sneering disbelief in
him was too much. He sprang up, his wrath tugging at its leash. She,
too, came to her feet, and stood facing him, hands clenched, breast
heaving, sneering, sobbing. Her words tumbled out.
"Oh, you! you! Brighter days, you say. Ha! ha! You beat Buck Foley? Yes,
I know how! Buck Foley'll not let you get a job in your trade. You'll
have to take up some other work--if you can get it! Begin all over!
We'll grow poorer and poorer. We'll have to eat anything. I'll have to
wear rags. Just when we were getting comfortable. And all because you
wouldn't pay any attention to what I said. Because you were such a
fo-o-ol! Oh, my God! My God!"
As she went on her voice rose to a scream, broken by gasps and sobs. At
the end she passionately jerked Tom's coat and hat from the couch and
threw herself upon it--and the frenzied words tumbled on, and on.
Tom looked down upon her a moment, quivering with wrath and a nameless
sickness. Then he picked up hat and coat, and glancing at Ferdinand, who
had shrunk terrified into a corner, walked quickly out of the flat.
He strode about the streets awhile, had dinner in a restaurant, and
then, as Wednesday was the union's meeting night, he went to Potomac
Hall. It fell out that he met Pete and Barry entering as he came up.
"I guess you'll have another foreman to-morrow, boys," he announced; and
he briefly told them of his discharge.
"It'll be us next, Rivet Head," said Pete.
Barry nodded, his face pale.
All the men in the hall learned that evening what had happened to Tom,
some from his friends, more from Foley's friends. And the manner of the
latter's telling was a warning to every listener. "D'you hear Keating
has been fired?" "Fired? No. What for?" A wise wink: "Well, he's been
talkin' about Foley, you know."
Tom grew hot under, but ignored, the open jeering of the Foleyites. The
sympathy of his friends he answered with a quiet, but ominous, "Just you
wait!" There were few present of the men he had counted on seeing, and
soon after the meeting ended, which was unusually early, he started
home.
It was after ten when he came in. Maggie sat working at the tidy; she
did not look up or speak; her passion had settled into resentful
obstinacy, and that, he knew from experience, only time could overcome.
He had not the least desire to assist time in its work of subjection,
and passed straight into their bedroom.
Tom felt her sustained resentment, as indeed he could not help; but he
did not feel that which was the first cause of the resentment--her lack
of sympathetic understanding of him. At twenty-three he had come into a
man's wages, and Maggie's was the first pretty face he had seen after
that. The novelty of their married life had soon worn off, and with the
development of his stronger qualities and of her worst ones, it had
gradually come about that the only thoughts they shared were those
concerning their common existence in their home. Tom had long since
become accustomed to carrying his real ideas to other ears. And so he
did not now consciously miss wifely sympathy with his efforts.
There was no break the next morning in Maggie's sullen resentment. After
an almost wordless breakfast Tom set forth to look for another job. An
opening presented itself at the first place he called. "Yes, it happens
we do need a foreman," said the contractor. "What experience have you
had?"
Tom gave an outline of his course in his trade, dwelling on the last two
years and a half that he had been a foreman.
"Um,--yes. That sounds very good. You say you worked last for Driscoll
on the St. Etienne job?"
"Yes."
"I suppose you don't mind telling why you left? Driscoll hasn't finished
that job yet."
Tom briefly related the circumstances.
"So you're out with Foley." The contractor shook his head. "Sorry. We
need a man, and I guess you're a good one. But if Foley did that to
Driscoll, he'll do the same to me. I can't afford to be mixed up in any
trouble with him."
This conversation was a more or less accurate pattern of many that
followed on this and succeeding days. Tom called on every contractor of
importance doing steel construction work. None of them cared to risk
trouble with Foley, and so Tom continued walking the streets.
One contractor--the man for whom he had worked before he went on the St.
Etienne job--offered Tom what he called some "business advice." "I'm a
pretty good friend of yours, Keating, for I've found you all on the
level. The trouble with you is, when you see a stone wall you think it
was put there to butt your head against. Now, I'm older than you are,
and had a lot more experience, and let me tell you it's a lot easier,
and a lot quicker, when you see trouble across your path like a stone
wall, to go round it than it is to try to butt it out of your way. Stop
butting against Foley. Make up with him, or go to some other city. Go
round him."
In the meantime Tom was busy with his campaign against Foley. He was
discharged on the fourteenth of February; the election came on the
seventh of March; only three weeks, so haste was necessary. On the days
he was tramping about for a job he met many members of the union also
looking for work, and to these he talked wherever he found them. And
every night he was out talking to the men, in the streets, in saloons,
in their own homes.
The problem of his campaign was a simple one--to get at least five
hundred of the three thousand members of the union to come to the hall
on election night and cast their votes against Foley. His campaign,
therefore, could have no spectacular methods and no spectacular
features. Hard, persistent work, night after night--that was all.
On the evening after the meeting and on the following evening Tom had
talks with several leading men in the union. A few joined in his plan
with spirit. But most that he saw held back; they were willing to help
him in secret, but they feared the result of an open espousal of his
cause. There were only a dozen men, including Barry and Pete, who were
willing to go the whole way with him, and these he formed loosely into a
campaign committee. They held a caucus and nominations for all offices
were made, Tom being chosen to run for walking delegate and president.
The presidency was unsalaried, and during Foley's régime had become an
office of only nominal importance; all real power that had ever
belonged to the position had been gradually absorbed by the office of
walking delegate. At the meeting on the twenty-first Tom's ticket was
formally presented to the union, as was also Foley's.
Even before this the dozen were busy with a canvass of the union. The
members agreed heartily to the plan of demanding an increase in wages,
for they had long been dissatisfied with the present scale. But to come
out against Foley, that was another matter. Tom found, as he had
expected, that his arguments had to be directed, not at convincing the
men that Foley was bad, but at convincing them it was safe to oppose
him. Reformers are accustomed to explain their failure by saying they
cannot arouse the respectable element to come out and vote against
corruption. They would find that even fewer would come to the polls if
the voters thereby endangered their jobs.
The answers of the men in almost all cases were the same.
"If I was sure I wouldn't lose my job, I'd vote against Foley in a
minute. But you know well enough, Tom, that we have a hard enough time
getting on now. Where'd we be if Foley blacklisted us?"
"But there's no danger at all, if enough of us come out," Tom would
reply. "We can't lose."
"But you can't count on the boys coming out. And if we lose, Foley'll
make us all smart. He'll manage to find out every man that voted against
him."
Here was the place in which the guarantee he had sought from Mr. Baxter
would fit in. Impelled by knowledge of the great value of this
guarantee, Tom went to see the big contractor a few days after his first
visit. The uniform traveled down the alley between the offices and
brought back word that Mr. Baxter was not in. Tom called again and
again. Mr. Baxter was always out. Tom was sorely disappointed by his
failure to get the guarantee, but there was nothing to do but to make
the best of it; and so he and his friends went on tirelessly with their
nightly canvassing.
The days, of course, Tom continued to spend in looking for work. In
wandering from contractor to contractor he frequently passed the
building in which was located the office of Driscoll & Co.; and, a week
after his discharge, as he was going by near one o'clock, it chanced
Miss Arnold was coming into the street. They saw each other in the same
instant. Tom, with his natural diffidence at meeting strange women, was
for passing her by with a lift of his hat. "Why, Mr. Keating!" she
cried, with a little smile, and as they held the same direction he could
but fall into step with her.
"What's the latest war news?" she asked.
"One man still out of a job," he answered, taking refuge in an attempt
at lightness. "No actual conflict yet. I'm busy massing my forces. So
far I have one man together--myself."
"You ought to find that a loyal army." She was silent for a dozen paces,
then asked impulsively: "Have you had lunch yet?"
Tom threw a surprised look down upon her. "Yes. Twelve o'clock's our
noon hour. We men are used to having our lunch then."
"I thought if you hadn't we might have lunched in the same place," she
hastened to explain, with a slight flush of embarrassment. "I wanted to
ask you some questions. You see, since I've been in New York I've been
in a way thrown in contact with labor unions. I've read a great deal on
both sides. But the only persons I've had a chance to talk to have all
been on the employers' side,--persons like Mr. Driscoll and my uncle,
Mr. Baxter."
"Baxter, the contractor--Baxter & Co.?"
"Yes."
Tom wondered what necessity had forced the niece of so rich a man as Mr.
Baxter to earn her living as a stenographer.
"I've often wanted to talk with some trade union man, but I've never had
the chance. I thought you might tell me some of the things I want to
know."
The note of sincere disappointment in Miss Arnold's voice brought a
suggestion to Tom's mind that both embarrassed and attracted. He was not
accustomed to the society of women of Miss Arnold's sort, whose order of
life had been altogether different from his own, and the idea of an hour
alone with her filled him with a certain confusion. But her freshness
and her desire to know more of the subject that was his whole life
allured him; and his interest was stronger than his embarrassment. "For
that matter, I'm not busy, as you know. If you would like it, I can talk
to you while you eat."
For the next hour they sat face to face in the quiet little restaurant
to which Miss Arnold had led the way. The other patrons found themselves
looking over at the table in the corner, and wondering what common
subject could so engross the refined young woman in the tailored gown
and the man in ill-fitting clothes, with big red hands, red neck and
crude, square face. For their part these two were unconscious of the
wondering eyes upon them. With a query now and then from Miss Arnold,
Tom spiritedly presented the union side of mooted questions of the
day,--the open shop, the strike, the sympathetic strike, the boycott.
The things Miss Arnold had read had dealt coldly with the moral and
economic principles involved in these questions. Tom spoke in human
terms; he showed how every point affected living men, and women, and
children. The difference was the difference between a treatise and life.
Miss Arnold was impressed,--not alone by what Tom said, but by the man
himself. The first two or three times she had seen him, on his brief
visits to the office, she had been struck only by a vague bigness--a
bigness that was not so much of figure as of bearing. On his last visit
she had been struck by his bold spirit. She now discovered the crude,
rugged strength of the man: he had thought much; he felt deeply; he
believed in the justice of his cause; he was willing, if the need might
be, to suffer for his beliefs. And he spoke well, for his sentences,
though not always grammatical, were always vital. He seemed to present
the very heart of a thing, and let it throb before the eyes.
When they were in the street again and about to go their separate ways,
Miss Arnold asked, with impulsive interest: "Won't you talk to me again
about these things--some time?"
Tom, glowing with the excitement of his own words and of her sympathetic
listening, promised. It was finally settled that he should call the
following Sunday afternoon.
Back at her desk, Miss Arnold fell to wondering what sort of man Tom
would be had he had four years at a university, and had his life been
thrown among people of cultivation. His power, plus these advantages,
would have made him--something big, to say the least. But had he gone to
college he would not now be in a trade union. And in a trade union, Miss
Arnold admitted to herself, was where he was needed, and where he
belonged.
Tom went on his way in the elation that comes of a new and gratifying
experience. He had never before had so keen and sympathetic a listener.
And never before had he had speech with a woman of Miss Arnold's
type--educated, thoughtful, of broad interests. Most of the women he had
known necessity had made into household drudges--tired and
uninteresting, whose few thoughts rarely ranged far from home. Miss
Arnold was a discovery to him. Deep down in his consciousness was a
distinct surprise that a woman should be interested in the big things of
the outside world.
He was fairly jerked out of his elation, when, on turning a corner, he
met Foley face to face in front of a skyscraper that was going up in
lower Broadway. It was their first meeting since Foley had tried to
have grim sport out of him on the St. Etienne Hotel.
Foley planted himself squarely across Tom's path. "Hello, Keating!
How're youse? Where youse workin' now?"
The sneering good-fellowship in Foley's voice set Tom's blood
a-tingling. But he tried to step to one side and pass on. Again Foley
blocked his way.
"I understand youse're goin' to be the next walkin' delegate o' the
union. That's nice. I s'pose these days youse're trainin' your legs for
the job?"
"See here, Buck Foley, are you looking for a fight? If you are, come
around to some quiet place and I'll mix it up with you all you want."
"I don't fight a man till he gets in my class."
"If you don't want to fight, then get out of my way!"
With that Tom stepped forward quickly and butted his hunched-out right
shoulder against Foley's left. Foley, unprepared, swung round as though
on a pivot. Tom brushed by and continued on his way with unturned head.
Again the walking delegate proved that he could swear.
Chapter VIII
THE COWARD
Two days before his meeting with Miss Arnold Tom had been convinced that
any more time was wasted that was spent in looking for a job as foreman.
He had before him the choice of being idle or working in the gang. He
disliked to do the latter, regarding it as a professional relapse. But
he was unwilling to draw upon his savings, if that could be avoided, so
he decided to go back into the ranks. The previous evening he had heard
of three new jobs that were being started. The contractors on two of
them he had seen during the morning; and after his encounter with Foley
he set out to interview the third. The contractor was an employer of the
smallest consequence--a florid man with little cunning eyes. "Yes, I do
need some men," he replied to Tom's inquiry. "How much d'you want?"
"Three seventy-five a day, the regular rate."
The contractor shook his head. "Too much. I can only pay three."
"But you signed an agreement to pay the full rate!" Tom cried.
"Oh, a man signs a lot o' things."
Tom was about to turn away, when his curiosity got the better of his
disgust. For a union man to work under the scale was an offense against
the union. For an employer to pay under the scale was an offense
against the employers' association. Tom decided to draw the contractor
out. "Well, suppose I go to work at three dollars, how do we keep from
being discovered?" he asked.
The little eyes gleamed with appreciation of their small cunning. "I
make this agreement with all my men: You get the full amount in your
envelope Saturday. Anybody that sees you open your envelope sees that
you're gettin' full scale. Then you hand me back four-fifty later.
That's for money I advanced you durin' the week. D'you understand?"
"I do," said Tom. "But I'm no three dollar man!"
"Hold on!" the contractor cried to Tom's back. His cunning told him in
an instant that he had made a mistake; that this man, if let go, might
make trouble. "I was just foolin' you. Of course, I'll pay you full
rate."
Tom knew the man was lying, but he had no real proof that the contractor
was breaking faith both with the union and his fellow employers; so, as
he needed the money, he took the offered position and went to work the
next morning. The job was a fire-engine house just being started on the
upper west side of the island. The isolation of the job and the
insignificance of the contractor made Tom feel there was a chance Foley
might overlook him for the next two weeks.
On the following Saturday morning three new men began work on the job.
One of them Tom was certain he knew--a tall, lank fellow, chiefly knobs
and angles, with wide, drooping shoulders and a big yellow mustache. Tom
left his place at the crane of the jimmy derrick and ran down a plank
into the basement to where this man and four others were rolling a round
column to its place.
He touched the man on the shoulder. "Your name's Petersen, ain't it?"
"Yah," said the big fellow.
"And you worked for a couple of days on the St. Etienne Hotel?"
"Yah."
Tom did his duty as prescribed by the union rules. He pointed out
Petersen as a scab to the steward. Straightway the men crowded up and
there was a rapid exchange of opinions. Tom and the steward wanted that
a demand for Petersen's discharge be made of the contractor. But the
others favored summary action, and made for where the big Swede was
standing.
"Get out!" they ordered.
Petersen glowered at the crowd. "I lick de whole bunch!" he said with
slow defiance.
The men were brought to a pause by his threatening attitude. His
resentful eyes turned for an instant on Tom. The men began to move
forward cautiously. Then the transformation that had taken place on the
St. Etienne Hotel took place again. The courage faded from him, and he
turned and started up the inclined plank for the street.
Jeers broke from the men. Caps and greasy gloves pelted Petersen's
retreating figure. One man, the smallest of the gang, ran up the plank
after him.
"Do him up, Kid!" the men shouted scrambling up to the sidewalk.
Kid, with showy valiance, aimed an upward blow at the Swede's head.
Petersen warded off the fist with automatic ease, but made no attempt to
strike back. He started away, walking sidewise, one eye on his path, one
on his little assailant who kept delivering fierce blows that somehow
failed to reach their mark.
"If he ain't runnin' from Kid!" ejaculated the men. "Good boy, Kid!"
The blows became faster and fiercer. At the corner Petersen turned back,
held his foe at bay an instant, and a second time Tom felt the
resentment of his eyes. Then he was driven around the corner. A minute
later the little man came back, puffed out and swaggering.
"What an infernal coward!" the men marveled, as they went back to work.
That was a hard evening for Tom. He not only had to work for votes, but
he met two or three lieutenants who were disheartened by the men's
slowness to promise support, and to these friends he had to give new
courage. Twice, as he was talking to men on the street, he glimpsed the
tall, lean figure of Petersen, standing in a doorway as though waiting
for someone.
The end of his exhausting evening's work found him near the Barrys', and
he dropped in for an exchange of experiences. Barry and Pig Iron Pete
had themselves come in but a few minutes before.
"Got work on your job for a couple more men?" asked Pete after the first
words had been spoken.
"Hello! You haven't been fired?"
"That's it," answered Pete; and Barry nodded.
"Foley's work, I suppose?"
"Sure. Foley put Jake Henderson up to it. Oh, Jake makes a hot foreman!
Driscoll ought to pay him ten a day to keep off the job. Jake complained
against us an' got us fired. Said we didn't know our business."
"Well, it's only for another week, boys," Tom cheered them.
"If you think that then you've had better luck with the men than me 'n'
Barry has," Pete declared in disgust. "They're a bunch o' old maids!
Foley's too good for 'em. I don't see why we should try to force 'em to
take somethin' better." The whole blankety-blanked outfit had Pete's
permission to go where they didn't need a forge to heat their rivets.
"You don't understand 'em, Pete," returned Tom. "They've got to think
first of all of how to earn a living for their families. Of course
they're going to hesitate to do anything that will endanger their chance
to earn a living. And you seem to forget that we've only got to get one
man in five to win out."
"An' we've got to get him!" said Barry, almost fiercely.
"D'you think there's much danger of your losin', Tom?" Mrs. Barry
queried anxiously.
"Not if we work. But we've got to work."
Mrs. Barry was silent for several moments, during which the talk of the
men ran on. Suddenly, she broke in: "Don't you think the women'd have
some influence with their husbands?"
Tom was silent for a thoughtful minute. "Some of them, mebbe."
"More'n you think, I bet!" Mrs. Barry declared. "It's worth tryin',
anyhow. Here's what I'm goin' to do: I'm goin' to start out to-morrow
an' begin visitin' all the union women I know. I can get the addresses
of others from them. An' I'll keep at it every afternoon I can get away
till the election. I'll talk to 'em good an' straight an' get 'em to
talk to other women. An' we'll get a lot o' the men in line, see if we
don't!"
Tom looked admiringly at Mrs. Barry's homely face, flushed with
determination. "The surest thing we can do to win is to put you up for
walking delegate. I'll hustle for you."
"Oh, g'wan with you, Tom!" She smiled with pleasure, however. "I've got
a picture o' myself climbin' up ladders an' buyin' drinks for the men."
"If you was the walkin' delegate," said Pete, "we'd always work on the
first floor, an' never drink nothin' but tea."
"You shut up, Pete!" Mrs. Barry looked at Tom. "I suppose you're wife'll
help in this, too?"
Tom looked steadily at the scroll in Mrs. Barry's red rug. "I'm afraid
not," he said at length. "She--she couldn't stand climbing the stairs."
It was after eleven o'clock when Tom left the Barrys' and started
through the quiet cross street toward a car line. A man stepped from an
adjoining doorway, and fell in a score of paces behind him. Tom heard
rapid steps drawing nearer and nearer, but it was not till the man had
gained to within a pace that it occurred to him perhaps he was being
followed. Then it was too late. His arm was seized in a grip of steel.
The street was dark and empty. Thoughts of Foley's entertainment
committee flashed through his head. He whirled about and struck out
fiercely with his free arm. His wrist was caught and held by a grip like
the first. He was as helpless as if handcuffed.
"I vant a yob," a savage voice demanded.
Tom recognized the tall, angular figure. "Hello, Petersen! What d'you
want?"
"I vant a yob."
"A job. How can I give you a job?"
"You take to-day ma yob avay. You give me a yob!"
In a flash Tom understood. The Swede held him accountable for the
incident of the morning, and was determined to force another job from
him. Was the man crazy? At any rate 'twould be wiser to parley than to
bring on a conflict with one possessed of such strength as those hands
betokened. So he made no attempt to break loose.
"I can't give you a job, I say."
"You take it avay!" the Swede said, with fierce persistence. "You make
me leave!"
"It's your own fault. If you want to work, why don't you get into the
union?"
Tom felt a convulsive shiver run through the man's big frame. "De union?
Ah, de union! Ev'ryvare I ask for yob. Ev'ryvare! 'You b'long to union?'
de boss say. 'No,' I say. De boss give me no yob. De union let me not
vork! De union----!" His hands gripped tighter in his impotent
bitterness.
"Of course the union won't let you work."
"Vy? I am strong!--yes. I know de vork."
Tom felt that no explanation of unionism, however lucid, would quiet
this simple-minded excitement. So he said nothing.
"Vy should I not vork? Dare be yobs. I know how to vork. But no! De
union! I mak dis mont' two days. I mak seven dollar. Seven dollar!" He
fairly shook Tom, and a half sob broke from his lips. "How de union tank
I live? My family?--me? Seven dollar?"
Tom recognized with a thrill that which he was hearing. It was the man's
soul crying out in resentment and despair.
"But you can't blame the union," he said weakly, feeling that his answer
did not answer.
"You tank not?" Petersen cried fiercely. "You tank not?" He was silent a
brief space, and his breath surged in and out as though he had just
paused from running. Suddenly he freed Tom's wrists and set his right
hand into Tom's left arm. "Come! I show you vot de union done."
He started away. Those iron fingers locked about the prisoner's arm were
a needless fetter. The Swede's despairing soul, glimpsed for a moment,
had thrown a spell upon Tom, and he would have followed willingly.
Their long strides matched, and their heel-clicks coincided. Both were
silent. At the end of ten minutes they were in a narrow street, clifted
on its either side with tenements that reached up darkly. Presently the
Swede turned down a stairway, sentineled by garbage cans. Tom thought
they were entering a basement. But Petersen walked on, and in the solid
blackness Tom was glad of the hand locked on his arm. They mounted a
flight of stone steps, and came into a little stone-paved court. Far
above there was a roof-framed square of stars. Petersen led the way
across the court and into the doorway of a rear tenement. The air was
rotting. They went up two flights of stairs, so old that the wood
shivered under foot. Petersen opened a door. A coal oil lamp burned on
an otherwise barren table, and beside the table sat a slight woman with
a quilt drawn closely about her.
She rose, the quilt fell from her shoulders, and she stood forth in a
faded calico wrapper. "Oh, Nels! You've come at last!" she said. Then
she saw Tom, and drew back a step.
"Yah," said Petersen. He dragged Tom after him into the room and swept
his left arm about. "See!--De union!"
The room was almost bare. The table, three wooden chairs, a few dishes,
a cooking-stove without fire,--this was the furniture. Half the
plastering was gone from the ceiling, the blue kalsomine was scaling
leprously from the walls, in places the floor was worn almost through.
In another room he saw a child asleep on a bed.
There was just one picture on the walls, a brown-framed photograph of a
man in the dress and pose of a prize fighter--a big, tall, angular man,
with a drooping mustache. Tom gave a quick glance at Petersen.
"See!--De union!" Petersen repeated fiercely.
The little woman came quickly forward and laid her hand on Petersen's
arm. "Nels, Nels," she said gently.
"Yah, Anna. But he is de man vot drove me from ma yob."
"We must forgive them that despitefully use us, the Lord says."
Petersen quieted under her touch and dropped Tom's arm.
She turned her blue eyes upon Tom in gentle accusation. "How could you?
Oh, how could you?"
Tom could only answer helplessly: "But why don't he join the union?"
"How can he?"
The words echoed within Tom. How could he? Everything Tom saw had not
the value of half the union's initiation fee.
There was an awkward silence. "Won't you sit down, brother." Mrs.
Petersen offered Tom one of the wooden chairs, and all three sat down.
He noted that the resentment was passing from Petersen's eyes, and that,
fastened on his wife, they were filling with submissive adoration.
"Nels has tried very hard," the little woman said. They had been in the
West for three years, she went on; Nels had worked with a non-union crew
on a bridge over the Missouri. When that job was finished they had spent
their savings coming to New York, hearing there was plenty of work
there. "We had but twenty dollars when we got here. How could Nels join
the union? We had to live. An' since he couldn't join the union, the
union wouldn't let him work. Brother, is that just? Is that the sort o'
treatment you'd like to get?"
Tom was helpless against her charges. The union was right in principle,
but what was mere correctness of principle in the presence of such a
situation?
"Would you be willing to join the union?" he asked abruptly of Petersen.
It was Petersen's wife who answered. "O' course he would."
"Well, don't you worry any more then. He won't have any trouble getting
a job."
"How?" asked the little woman.
"I'm going to get him in the union."
"But that costs twenty-five dollars."
"Yes."
"But, brother, we haven't got _one_!"
"I'll advance it. He can pay it back easy enough afterwards."
The little woman rose and stood before Tom. Her thin white face was
touched up faintly with color, and tears glistened in her eyes. She took
Tom's big red hand in her two frail ones.
"Brother, if you ain't a Christian, you've got a Christian heart!" she
cried out, and the thin hands tightened fervently. She turned to her
husband. "Nels, what did I say! The Lord would not forget them that
remembered him."
Tom saw Petersen stand up, nothing in his eyes now but adoration, and
open his arms. He turned his head.
For the second time Tom took note of the brown-framed photograph, with
"The Swedish Terror" in black letters at its bottom, and rose and stood
staring at it. Presently, Mrs. Petersen drew to his side.
"We keep it before us to remind us what wonders the Lord can work, bless
His holy name!" she explained. "Nels was a terrible fightin' man before
we was married an' I left the Salvation Army. A terrible fightin' man!"
Even in her awe of Petersen's one-time wickedness Tom could detect a
lurking admiration of his prowess. "The Lord has saved him from all
that. But he has a terrible temper. It flares up at times, an' the old
carnal desire to fight gets hold o' him again. That's his great
weakness. But we pray that God will keep him from fightin', an' God
does!"
Tom looked at the little woman, a bundle of religious ardor, looked at
Petersen with his big shoulders, thought of the incident of the morning.
He blinked his eyes.
Tom stepped to the table and laid down a five-dollar bill. "You can pay
that back later." He moved quickly to the door. "Good-night," he said,
and tried to escape.
But Mrs. Petersen was upon him instantly. "Brother! Brother!" She seized
his hands again in both hers, and looked at him with glowing eyes.
"Brother, may God bless you!"
Tom blinked his eyes again. "Good-night," he said.
Petersen stepped forward and without a word took Tom's arm. The grasp
was lighter than when they had come up. Again Tom was glad of the
guidance of that hand as they felt their way down the shivering stairs,
and out through the tunnel.
"Good-night," he said once more, when they had gained the street.
Petersen gripped his hand in awkward silence.
Chapter IX
RUTH ARNOLD
Ruth Arnold was known among her friends as a queer girl. Neither the new
ones in New York nor the old ones of her birth town understood her
"strange impulses." They were constantly being shocked by ideas and
actions which they considered, to phrase it mildly, very unusual. The
friends in her old home were horrified when she decided to become a
stenographer. Friends in both places were horrified when, a little less
than a year before, it became known she was going to leave the home of
her aunt to become Mr. Driscoll's secretary. "What a fool!" they cried.
"If she had stayed she might have married ever so well!" Mrs. Baxter had
entreated, and with considerable elaboration had delivered practically
these same opinions. But Ruth was obstinate in her queerness, and had
left.
However, only a few weeks before, Mrs. Baxter had had a partial
recompense for Ruth's disappointing conduct. She had noted the growing
intimacy between Mr. Berman, who was frequently at her house, and Ruth,
and by delicate questioning had drawn the calm statement from her niece
that Mr. Berman had asked her in marriage.
"Of course you said 'yes,'" said Mrs. Baxter.
Ruth had not.
"My child! Why not?"
"I don't love him."
"What of that?" demanded her aunt, who loved her husband. "Love will
come. He is educated, a thorough gentleman, and has money. What more do
you want in a husband? And your uncle says he is very clever in
business."
Thus brought to bay, Ruth had taken her aunt into the secret that her
refusal had not been final and that Mr. Berman had given her six months
in which to make up her mind. This statement was Mrs. Baxter's partial
recompense. "Then you'll marry him, Ruth!" she declared, and kissed her
lightly.
Ruth understood herself no better than did her friends. She was not
conscious that she had in a measure that rare endowment--the clear
vision which perceives the things of life in their true relation and at
their true value, plus the instinct to act upon that vision. It was the
manifestations of this instinct that made her friends call her queer.
Her instinct, however, did not hold her in sole sway. Her training had
fastened many governing conventions upon her, and she was not always as
brave as her inward promptings. Her actions made upon impulse were
usually in accord with this instinct. Her actions that were the result
of thought were frequently in accord with convention.
It was her instinct that had impelled her to ask Tom to call. It was
convention that, on Sunday afternoon, made her await his coming with
trepidation. She was genuinely interested in the things for which Tom
stood, and her recent-born admiration of him was sincere. Nevertheless
his approaching visit was in the nature of an adventure to her. This
workingman, transferred from the business world to the social world,
might prove himself an embarrassing impossibility. Especially, she
wondered, with more than a little apprehension, how he would be dressed.
She feared a flaming necktie crawling up his collar, and perhaps in it a
showy pin; or a pair of fancy shoes; or a vest of assertive pattern; or,
perhaps, hair oil!
When word was brought her by a maid that Tom was below, she gave an
order that he was to wait, and put on her hat and jacket. She did not
know him well enough to ask him to her room. She could not receive him
in the parlor common to all the boarding-house. Her instinctive self
told her it would be an embarrassment to him to be set amid the
gossiping crowd that gathered there on Sunday afternoon. Her
conventional self told her that, if he were but a tenth as bad as was
possible, it would be more than an embarrassment for her to sit beside
him amid those curious eyes. The street was the best road out of the
dilemma.
He was sitting in the high-backed hall chair when she came down. "Shall
we not take a walk?" she asked. "The day is beautiful for February."
Tom acceded gratefully. He had glanced through the parted portières into
the parlor, and his minutes of waiting had been minutes of
consternation.
The first thing Ruth noted when they came out into the light of the
street was that his clothes were all in modest taste, and she thrilled
with relief. Mixed with this there was another feeling, a glow of
pleasure that he was vindicating himself to her conventional part.
Ruth lived but a few doors from Central Park. As they started across
Central Park West a big red automobile, speeding above the legal rate,
came sweeping down upon them, tooting its arrogant warning. Tom jerked
Ruth back upon the sidewalk. She glared at the bundled-up occupants of
the scurrying car.
"Don't it make you feel like an anarchist when people do that?" she
gasped.
"Not the bomb-throwing sort."
"Why not? When people do that, I've got just one desire, and that's to
throw a bomb!"
"What good would a bomb here or there do? Or what harm?" Tom asked
humorously. "What's the use trying to destroy people that're already
doomed?"
Ruth was silent till they gained the other side of the street. "Doomed?
What do you mean?" she then asked.
"Every dog has his day, you know. Them rich people are having theirs.
It's a summer day, and I guess it's just about noon now. But it's
passing."
Ruth had learned during her conversation with him on the previous
Tuesday that a large figurative statement such as this was likely to
have a great many ideas behind it, so she now proceeded to lead him to
the ideas' expression. The sun, drawing good-humoredly from his summer's
store, had brought thousands to the Park walks, and with genial
presumption had unbuttoned their overcoats. The bare gray branches of
bush and tree glinted dully in the warm light, as if dreamfully smiling
over the budding days not far ahead. But Tom had attention for the joy
of neither the sun nor his dependents. He thought only of what he was
saying, for he had been led to speech upon one of his dearest subjects.
Though he had left school at thirteen to begin work, he had attended
night school for a number of years, had belonged to a club whose chief
aim was debating, had read a number of solid books and had done a great
deal of thinking for himself. As a result of his reading, thinking and
observation he had come into some large ideas concerning the future of
the working class. In the past, he now said to Ruth, classes had risen
to power, served their purpose, and been displaced by new classes
stimulated by new ideas. The capitalist class was now in power, and was
performing its mission--the development and centralization of
industries. But its decline would be even more rapid than its rise. It
would be succeeded by the working class. The working class was vast in
numbers, and was filled with surging energy. Its future domination was
certain.
"And you believe this?" Ruth queried when he came to a pause.
"I know it."
"Admitting that all these things are coming about--which I don't--don't
you honestly think it would be disastrous to the general interest for
the workingman to come into power?"
"You mean we would legislate solely in our own interests? What if we
did? Hasn't every class that ever came into power done that? Anyhow,
since we make up nine-tenths of the people we'd certainly be legislating
in the interests of the majority--which can't always be said now. And as
for our ability to run things, I'd rather have an honest fool than a
grafter that knows it all. But if you mean we're a pretty rough lot, and
haven't much education, I guess you're about right. How can we help it?
We've never had a chance to be anything else. But think what the working
class was a hundred years ago! Haven't we come up? Thousands of miles!
That's because we've been getting more and more chances, like chances
for an education, that used to belong only to the rich. And our chances
are increasing. Another hundred years and we won't know ourselves. We'll
be fit for anything!"
"I see you're very much of a dreamer."
"Dreamer? Not at all! If you were to look ahead and say in a hundred
years from now it'll be 2000, would you call that a dream?"
"Hardly!" Ruth admitted with a smile.
"Well, what I'm telling you is just as certain as the passage of time.
I'm anything but a dreamer. I believe in a present for the working class
as well as a future. I believe that we, if we work hard, have the right,
now, to-day, to a comfortable living, and with enough over to give our
children as good an education as the children of the bosses; and with
enough to buy a few books, see a little of the world, and to save a
little so we'll not have ahead of us the terrible fear that we and our
families may starve when we get too old to work. That's the least we
ought to have. But we lack an almighty lot of having it, Miss Arnold.
"Take my own trade--and we're a lot better off than most workingmen--we
get three seventy-five a day. That wouldn't be so bad if we made it
three hundred days a year, but you know we don't average more than six
months' work. Less than seven hundred dollars a year. What can a man
with a family do in New York on seven hundred dollars a year? Two
hundred for rent, three hundred for food, one hundred for clothes.
There's six hundred gone in three lumps. Twenty-five cents a day left
for heat, light, education, books, amusement, travel, street-car
fare,--and to save for your old age!
"And then our trade's dangerous. I think half of our men are killed. If
you saw the obituary list that's published monthly of all the branches
of our union in the country, you'd think so, too! Every other
name--crushed, or something broke and he fell. Only the other day on a
steel bridge near Pittsburg a piece of rigging snapped and ten men
dropped two hundred feet. They landed on steel beams in a barge anchored
below--and were pulp. And after the other names, it's pneumonia or
consumption. D'you know what that means? It means exposure at work.
Killed by their work!... Well, that's our work,--and we get seven
hundred a year!
"And then our work takes the best part of our lives, and throws us away.
So long as we're strong and active, we can be used. But the day we
begin to get a little stiff--if we last that long!--we're out of it. It
may be at forty. We've got to learn how to do something else, or just
wait for the end. There's our families. And you know how much we've got
in the bank!
"Well, that's how it is in our union. Is seven hundred a year
enough?--when we risk our lives every day we work?--when we're fit for
work only so long as we're young men? We're human beings, Miss Arnold.
We're men. We want comfortable homes, we want to keep our children in
school, we'd like to save something up for the time when we can't work.
Seven hundred a year! How're we going to do it, Miss Arnold? How're we
going to do it?"
Ruth looked up at his glowing set face, and for the moment forgot she
was allied to the other side. "Demand higher wages!" her instinct
answered promptly.
"That's the only thing! And that's what we're going to do! More money
for the time we do work!"
He said no more. Now that the stimulant of his excited words was gone,
Ruth felt her fatigue. Engrossed by his emotions he had swung along at a
pace that had taxed her lesser stride.
"Shall we not sit down," she suggested; and they found a bench on a
pinnacle of rock from whence they looked down through a criss-cross of
bare branches upon a sun-polished lagoon, and upon the files of people
curving along the paths. Tom removed his hat, and Ruth turning to face
him took in anew the details of his head--the strong, square,
smooth-shaven face, the broad forehead, moist and banded with pink where
his hat had pressed, the hair that clung to his head in tight brown
curls. Looked,--and felt herself growing small, and the men of her
acquaintance growing small. And thought.... Yes, that was it; it was his
purpose that made him big.
"You have kept me so interested that I've not yet asked you about your
fight against Mr. Foley," she said, after a moment.
Tom told her all that had been done.
"But is there no other way of getting at the men except by seeing them
one by one?" she asked. "That seems such a laborious way of carrying on
a campaign. Can't you have mass-meetings?"
Tom shook his head. "In the first place it would be hard to get the men
out; they're tired when they come home from work, and then a lot of them
don't want to openly identify themselves with us. And in the second
place Foley'd be likely to fill the hall with his roughs and break the
meeting up."
"But to see the men individually! And you say there are twenty-five
hundred of them. Why, that's impossible!"
"Yes. A lot of the men we can't find. They're out when we call."
"Why not send a letter to every member?" asked Ruth, suggesting the plan
to her most obvious.
"A letter?"
"A letter that would reach them a day or two before election! A short
letter, that drove every point home!" She leaned toward him excitedly.
"Good!" Tom brought his fist down on his knee.
Ruth knew the money would have to come from his pocket. "Let's see. It
would cost, for stamps, twenty-five dollars; for the letters--they could
be printed--about fifteen dollars; for the envelopes six or seven
dollars. Say forty-five or fifty dollars."
Fifty dollars was a great deal to Tom--saved little by little. But he
hesitated only a moment. "All right. If we can influence a hundred men,
one in twenty-five, it'll be worth the money."
A thoughtful look came over his face.
"What is it?" Ruth asked quickly.
"I was thinking about the printing and other things. Wondering how I
could get away from work to see to it."
"Won't you let me look after that for you?" Ruth asked eagerly. "I look
after all our printing. I can leave the office whenever I'm not busy,
you know. It would take only a few minutes of my time."
"It really wouldn't?" Tom asked hesitantly.
"It wouldn't be any trouble at all. And I'd be glad to do it."
Tom thanked her. "I wouldn't know how to go about a thing of that sort,
anyhow, even if I could get away from work," he admitted.
"And I could see to the addressing, too," Ruth pursued.
He sat up straight. "There's the trouble! The addresses!"
"The addresses? Why?"
"There's only one list of the men and where they live. That's the book
of the secretary and treasurer."
"Won't he lend it to you?"
Tom had to laugh. "Connelly lend it to me! Connelly's one of the best
friends Foley's got."
"Then there's no way of getting it?"
"He keeps it in his office, and when he's not there the office is
locked. But we'll get it somehow."
"Well, then if you'll write out the letter and send it to me in a day or
two, I'll see to having it printed right away."
It flashed upon Tom what a strong concluding statement to the letter the
guarantee from Mr. Baxter would make. He told Ruth of his idea, of his
attempts to get the guarantee, and of the influence it would have on the
men.
"He's probably forgotten all about it," she said. "I think I may be able
to help you to get it. I can speak to Aunt Elizabeth and have her speak
to him."
But her quick second thought was that she could not do this without
revealing to her aunt a relation Mrs. Baxter could not understand. "No,
after all I can't be of any use there. You might try to see him again,
and if you fail then you might write him."
Tom gave her a quick puzzled glance, as he had done a few days before
when she had mentioned her relation to Mr. Baxter. She caught the look.
"You are wondering how it is Mr. Baxter is my uncle," she guessed.
"Yes," he admitted.
"It's very simple. All rich people have their poor relatives, I
suppose? Mrs. Baxter and my mother were sisters. Mr. Baxter made money.
My father died before he had a chance. After mamma died, I decided to go
to work. There was only enough money to live a shabby-genteel, pottering
life--and I was sick of that. I have no talents, and I wanted to be out
in the world, in contact with people who are doing real things. So I
learned stenography. A little over a year ago I came to New York. I
lived for awhile with my uncle and aunt; they were kind, but the part of
a poor relation didn't suit me, and I made up my mind to go to work
again. They were not pleased very well; they wanted me to stay with
them. But my mind was made up. I offered to go to work for my uncle, but
he had no place for me, and got me the position with Mr. Driscoll. And
that's all."
A little later she asked him for the time. His watch showed a quarter of
five. On starting out she had told him that she must be home by five, so
she now remarked: "Perhaps we'd better be going. It'll take us about
fifteen minutes to walk back."
They started homeward across the level sunbeams that were stretching
themselves out beneath barren trees and over brown lawns for their
night's sleep. As they drew near to Ruth's boarding-house they saw a
perfectly-tailored man in a high hat go up the steps. He was on the
point of ringing the bell when he sighted them, and he stood waiting
their coming. A surprised look passed over his face when he recognized
Ruth's companion.
As they came up the steps he raised his hat to Ruth. "Good-afternoon,
Miss Arnold." And to Tom he said carelessly: "Hello, Keating."
Tom looked him squarely in the eyes. "Hello, Berman," he returned.
Mr. Berman started at the omission of the "Mr." Tom lifted his hat to
Ruth, bade her good-afternoon, and turned away, not understanding a
sudden pang that shot into his heart.
Mr. Berman's eyes followed Tom for a dozen paces. "A very decent
sort--for a workingman," he remarked.
"For any sort of a man," said Ruth, with an emphasis that surprised her.
She took out her latch-key, and they entered.
Chapter X
LAST DAYS OF THE CAMPAIGN
After supper, which was eaten in the customary silence, Tom started for
the Barrys' to talk over the scheme of circularizing the members of the
union. He met Pete coming out of the Barrys' tenement. He joined him
and, as they walked away, outlined the new plan.
"That's what I call a mighty foxy scheme," Pete approved. "It's a
knock-out blow. It'll come right at the last minute, an' Foley won't
have time to hit back."
Tom pointed out the difficulty of getting the membership list. "You
leave that to me, Tom. It's as easy as fallin' off the twenty-third
story an' hittin' the asphalt. You can't miss it."
"But what kind of a deal will you make with Connelly? He's crooked, you
know."
"Yes, he has got pretty much of a bend to him," Pete admitted. "But he
ain't so worse, Tom. I've traveled a lot with him. When d'you want the
book?"
"We've got to get it and put it back without Connelly knowing it's been
gone. We'd have to use it at night. Could you get it late, and take it
back the next morning?"
"That'd be runnin' mighty close. What's the matter with gettin' it
Saturday night an' usin' it Sunday?"
"Sunday's pretty late, with the election coming Wednesday. But it'll do,
I guess."
Tom spent the evening at one corner of the dining-table from which he
had turned back the red cloth, laboriously scratching on a sheet of
ruled letter paper. He had never written when he could avoid it. His
ideas were now clear enough, but they struggled against the unaccustomed
confinement of written language. The words came slowly, with physical
effort, and only after crossing out, and interlining, and crossing out
again, were they joined into sentences.
At ten o'clock Maggie, who had been calling on a friend, came in with
Ferdinand. The boy made straight for the couch and was instantly asleep.
Maggie was struck at once by the unwonted sight of her husband writing,
but her sulkiness fought her curiosity for more than a minute, during
which she removed her hat and jacket, before the latter could gain a
grudged victory. "What are you doing?" she asked shortly.
"Writing a letter," he answered, keeping his eyes on the paper.
She leaned over his shoulder and read a few lines. Her features
stiffened. "What're you going to do with that?"
"Print it."
"But you'll have to pay for it."
"Yes."
"How much?"
"About fifty dollars."
She gasped, and her sullen composure fled. "Fifty dollars! For
that--that----" Breath failed her.
Tom looked around. Her black eyes were blazing. Her hands were clenched.
Her full breast was rising and falling rapidly.
"Tom Keating, this is about the limit!" she broke out. "Hain't your
foolishness learnt you anything yet? It's cost you seven dollars a week
already. And here you are, throwing fifty dollars away all in one lump!
Fifty dollars!" Her breath failed her again. "That's like you! You'll
throw money away, and let me go without a decent rag to my back!"
Tom arose. "Maggie," he said, in a voice that was cold and hard, "I
don't expect any sympathy from you. I don't expect you to understand
what I'm about. I don't think you want to understand. But I do expect
you to keep still, if you've got nothing better to say than you've just
said!"
Maggie had lost herself. "Is that a threat?" she cried furiously. "Do
you mean to threaten me? Why, you brute! D'you think you can make me
keep still? You throw away money that's as much mine as yours!--you make
me suffer for it!--and yet you expect me never to say a word, do you?"
Tom glared at her. His hands tingled to lay hold of her and shake her.
But, as he glared, he thought of the woman he had so recently left, and
a sense of shame for his desire crept upon him. And, too, he began
vaguely to feel, what it was inevitable he should some time feel, the
contrast between his wife ... and this other.
His silence added to her frenzy. "You threaten me? What do I care for
your threats! You can't do anything worse than you already have
done,--and are doing. You're ruining us! Well, what are you standing
there for? Why----"
There was but one thing for Tom to do, that which he had often had to do
before,--go into the street. He put the scribbled sheets into his coat,
and left her standing there in the middle of the floor pouring out her
fury.
He walked about till he thought she would be asleep, then returned. A
glance into their bedroom showed her in bed, and Ferdinand in his cot at
the bed's foot. He sat down again at the table and resumed his clumsy
pencil.
It was midnight before the two-hundred-word production was completed and
copied. He put it into an envelope, enclosed a note saying he expected
to have the list of names over the following Sunday, and took the letter
down and dropped it into a mail-box. Then removing shoes, coat, and
collar, he lay down on the sofa with his overcoat for covering, and
presently fell asleep.
Ruth's heart sank when she received the letter the next afternoon. Her
yesterday's talk with him had left her with a profound impression of his
power, and that impression had been fresh all the morning. This
painfully written letter, with its stiff, hard sentences, headed "Save
the Union!" and beginning "Brothers," recalled to her with a shock
another element of his personality. It was as though his crudity had
dissociated itself from his other qualities and laid itself, bare and
unrelieved, before her eyes.
As she read the letter a second time she felt a desire to improve upon
his sentences; but she thought this might give him offense; and she
thought also, and rightly, that his stilted sentences, rich with such
epithets, as "tyrant," "bully," "grafter," would have a stronger effect
on his readers than would more polished and controlled language. So she
carried the letter to the printer as it had left Tom's hand.
She wrote Tom that Mr. Driscoll was willing her office should be used
for the work of Sunday. Tom's answer was on a postal card and written in
pencil. She sighed.
The week passed rapidly with Tom, the nights in canvassing, the days in
work. Every time he went to work, he did so half expecting it would be
his last day on the job. But all went well till Friday morning. Then the
expected happened. As he came up to the fire-house a hansom cab, which
had turned into the street behind him, stopped and Foley stepped out.
"Hold on there, Keating!" the walking delegate called.
Tom paused, three or four paces from the cab. Foley stepped to his side.
"So this's where youse've sneaked off to work!"
Tom kept his square jaw closed.
"I heard youse were at work. I thought I'd look youse up to-day. So I
followed youse. Now, are youse goin' to quit this job quiet, or do I
have to get youse fired?"
Tom answered with dangerous restraint. "I haven't got anything against
the contractor. And I know what you'd do to him to get me off. I'll go."
"Move then, an' quick!"
"There's one thing I want to say to you first," said Tom; and instantly
his right fist caught the walking delegate squarely on the chin. Foley
staggered back against the wheel of the hansom. Without giving him a
second look Tom turned about and walked toward the car line.
When Foley recovered himself Tom was a score of paces away. Half a dozen
of the workmen were looking at him in waiting silence. He glared at
Tom's broad back, but made no attempt to follow.
"To-day ain't the only day!" he said to the men, closing his eyes to
ominous slits; and he stepped back into the cab and drove away.
That evening Tom had an answer to the letter he had written Mr. Baxter,
after having failed once more to find that gentleman in. It was of but a
single sentence.
After giving thorough consideration to your suggestion, I have
decided that it would be neither wise nor in good taste for me to
interfere in the affairs of your union.
Tom stared at the letter in amazement. Mr. Baxter had little to risk,
and much to gain. He could not understand. But, however obscure Mr.
Baxter's motive, the action necessitated by his decision was as clear
as a noon sun; a vital change had to be made in the letter to the
members of the union. Certain of Mr. Baxter's consent, Tom had set down
the guarantee to the men as the last paragraph in the letter and had
held the proof awaiting Mr. Baxter's formal authorization of its use. He
now cut out the paragraph that might have meant a thousand votes, and
mailed the sheet to Ruth.
He talked wherever he could all the next day, and the next evening.
After going home he sat up till almost one o'clock expecting Pete to
come in with the roster of the members. But Pete did not appear. Early
Sunday morning Tom was over at the Barrys'. Pete was not yet up, Mrs.
Barry told him. Tom softly opened the door of Pete's narrow room and
stepped in. Pete announced himself asleep by a mighty trumpeting. Tom
shook his shoulders. He stirred, but did not open his eyes. "Doan wan'
no breakfas'," he said, and slipped back into unconsciousness. Tom shook
him again, without response. Then he threw the covers back from Pig
Iron's feet and poured a little water on them. Pete sat suddenly
upright; there was a meteoric shower of language; then he recognized
Tom.
"Hello, Tom! What sort of a damned society call d'you call this?"
"If you only worked as hard as you sleep, Pete, you could put up a
building alone," said Tom, exasperated. "D'you get the book?"
"Over there." Pete pointed to a package lying on the floor.
Tom picked it up eagerly, sat down on the edge of the bed--Pete's
clothes were sprawling over the only chair--and hastily opened it.
Within the wrapping paper was the secretary's book.
"How'd you get it, Pete?"
"The amount o' licker I turned into spittoons last night, Tom, was
certainly an immoral waste. If I'd put it where it belonged, I'd be
drunk for life. Connelly, he'll never come to. Now, s'pose you chase
along, Tom, an' let me finish things up with my bed."
"What time d'you want the book again?"
"By nine to-night."
"Will you have any trouble putting it back in the office?"
"Sure not. While I had Connelly's keys I made myself one to his office.
I took a blank and a file with me last night."
At ten o'clock, the hour agreed upon, Tom was in Ruth's office. Ruth and
a business-looking woman of middle age, who was introduced as a Mrs.
Somebody, were already there when he came. Five boxes of envelopes were
stacked on a table, which had been drawn to the center of the room, the
letters were on a smaller table against one wall, and sheets of stamps
were on the top of Ruth's desk.
Tom was appalled when he saw what a quantity twenty-five hundred
envelopes were. "What! We can't write names on all those to-day!"
"It'll take the two of us about seven hours with you reading the names
to us," Ruth reassured him. "I had the letters come folded from the
printers. We'll put them in the envelopes and put on the stamps
to-morrow. They'll all be ready for the mail Monday night."
Until five o'clock, with half an hour off for lunch, the two women wrote
rapidly, Tom, on the opposite side of the table, reading the names to
them alternately and omitting the names of the adherents of Foley.
Now that she was with him again Ruth soon forgot all about Tom's
crudity. His purposeful power, which projected itself through even so
commonplace an occupation as reading off addresses, rapidly remade its
first impression. It dwarfed his crudity to insignificance.
When he left her at her door she gave him her hand with frank
cordiality. "You'll come Thursday evening then to tell me all about it
as you promised. When I see you then I'm sure it will be to congratulate
you."
Chapter XI
IN FOLEY'S "OFFICE"
Buck Foley's greatest weakness was the consciousness of his strength.
Two years before he would have been a much more formidable opponent, for
then he was alert for every possible danger and would have put forth his
full of strength and wits to overwhelm an aspiring usurper. Now he was
like the ring champion of several years' standing who has become too
self-confident to train.
Foley felt such security that he made light of the first reports of
Tom's campaigning brought him by his intimates. "He can't touch me," he
said confidently. "After he rubs sole leather on asphalt a few more
weeks, he'll be so tame he'll eat out o' my hand."
It was not till the meeting at which Tom's ticket was presented that
Foley awoke to the possibility of danger. He saw that Tom was
tremendously in earnest, that he was working hard, that he was gaining
strength among the men. If Tom were to succeed in getting out the
goody-goody element, or even a quarter of it----Foley saw the menacing
possibility.
Connelly hurried up to him at the close of the meeting. "Say, Buck,
this here looks serious!" he whispered. "A lot o' the fellows are
gettin' scared."
"What's serious?"
"Keating's game."
"I'd forgotten that. I keep forgettin' little things. Well, s'pose youse
get the bunch to drop in at Mulligan's."
Half an hour later Foley, who knew the value of coming late, sauntered
into the back room of Mulligan's saloon, which drinking-place was
distant two blocks from Potomac Hall. This back room was commonly known
as "Buck's Office," for here he met and issued orders to his
lieutenants. It was a square room with a dozen chairs, three tables,
several pictures of prize fighters and several nudes of the brewers'
school of art. Connelly, Jake Henderson, and six other men sat at the
tables, beer glasses before them, talking with deep seriousness.
Foley paused in the doorway. "Hello, youse coffin-faces! None o' this
for mine!" He started out.
"Hold on, Buck!" Connelly cried, starting up.
Foley turned back. "Take that crape off your mugs, then!"
"We were talkin' about Keating," Connelly explained. "It strikes us he
means business."
It was a principle in Foley's theory of government not to ask help of
his lieutenants in important affairs except when it was necessary; it
fed his love of power to feel them dependent upon his action. But it was
also a principle that they should feel an absolute confidence in him. He
now saw dubiety on every face; an hour's work was marked out. He sat
down, threw open his overcoat, put one foot on a table and tipped back
in his chair. "Yes, I s'pose Keating thinks he does mean business."
With his eyes fixed carelessly on the men he drew from a vest pocket a
tight roll of bills, with 100 showing at either end, and struck a match;
and moved the roll, held cigar-wise between the first and second fingers
of his left hand, and the match toward his mouth. With a cry Connelly
sprang forward and seized his wrist.
"Now what the hell----" Foley began, exasperatedly. His eyes fell to his
hand, and he grinned. "Well! Now I wonder where that cigar is." He went
one by one through the pockets of his vest. "Well, I reckon I'll have to
buy another. Jake, ask one o' the salesladies to fetch in some cabbage."
Jake Henderson stepped to the door and called for cigars. Mulligan
himself responded, bearing three boxes which he set down before Foley.
"Five, ten and fifteen," he said, pointing in turn at the boxes.
Foley picked up the cheapest box and snuffed at its contents. "These the
worst youse got?"
"Got some two-fers."
"Um! Make youse think youse was mendin' the asphalt, I s'pose. I guess
these's bad enough. Help youselves, boys." But it was the fifteen-cent
box he started around.
The men took one each, and the box came back to Foley. "Hain't youse
fellows got no vest pockets?" he demanded, and started the box around
again.
When the box had completed its second circuit Mulligan took it and the
two others and started out. "Hold on, Barney," said Foley. "What's the
matter with your beer?"
"My beer?"
"Been beggin' the boys to have some more, but they don't want it."
"My beer's----"
"Hi, Barney! Don't youse see he's shootin' hot air into youse?" cried
Jake delightedly. "Chase in the beer!"
"No, youse don't have to drink nothin' youse don't like. Bring in some
champagne, Barney. I'm doin' a scientific stunt. I want to see what
champagne does to a roughneck."
"How much?" asked Mulligan.
"Oh, about a barrel." He drew from his trousers pocket a mixture of
crumpled bills, loose silver, and keys. From this he untangled a
twenty-dollar bill and handed it to Mulligan.
"Fetch back what youse don't want. An' don't move like your feet was
roots, neither."
Two minutes later Mulligan returned with four quart bottles. Immediately
behind him came a girl in the dress of the Salvation Army. "Won't you
help us in our work?" she said, holding her tin box out to Foley.
"Take what youse want." He pointed with his cigar to the change Mulligan
had just laid upon the table.
With hesitation she picked up a quarter. "This much?" she asked, smiling
doubtfully.
"No wonder youse're poor!" He swept all the change into his palm.
"Here!" and he thrust it into her astonished hands.
After she had stammered out her thanks and departed, Foley began to fill
the glasses from a bottle Mulligan had opened. Jake, moistening his
lips, put out his hand in mock refusal.
"Only a drop for me, Buck."
Foley filled Jake's glass to the brim. "Well, there's several. Pick your
choice."
He filled the other glasses, then lifted his own with a "Here's how!"
They all raised the fragile goblets clumsily and emptied them at a gulp.
"Now put about twenty dollars' worth o' grin on your faces," Foley
requested.
"But what about Keating?" asked Connelly anxiously, harking back to the
first subject. "He's startin' a mighty hot fight. An' really, Buck, he's
a strong man."
"Yes, I reckon he is." Foley put one hand to his mouth and yawned
mightily behind it. "But he's sorter like a big friend o' mine who went
out to cut ice in July. His judgment ain't good."
"Of course, he ain't got no chance."
"The same my friend had o' fillin' his ice-house."
"But it strikes me we ought to be gettin' busy," Connelly persisted.
"See here, Connelly. Just because I ain't got a couple o' niggers
humpin' to keep the sweat wiped off me, youse needn't think I'm
loafin'," Foley returned calmly.
The others, who had shared Connelly's anxiety, were plainly affected by
Foley's large manner.
"Youse can just bet Buck'll be there with the goods when the time
comes," Jake declared confidently.
"That's no lie," agreed the others.
"Oh, I ain't doubtin' Buck. Never a once!" said Connelly. "But what's
your plans, Buck?"
Foley gazed mysteriously over their heads, and slowly blew out a cloud
of smoke. "Youse just keep your two eyes lookin' my way."
Foley knew the value of coming late. He also knew the value of leaving
as soon as your point is made. His quick eyes now saw that he had
restored the company's confidence; they knew he was prepared for every
event.
"I guess I'll pull out," he said, standing up. "Champagne ain't never
been the same to me since me an' Morgan went off in his yacht, an' the
water give out, an' we had to wash our shirts in it." He looked through
the door into the bar-room. "Say, Barney, if these roughnecks want
anything more, just put it down to me." He turned back to the men.
"So-long, boys," he said, with a wave of his hand, and went out through
the bar-room.
"The man that beats Buck Foley's got to beat five aces," declared Jake
admiringly.
"Yes," agreed Connelly. "An' he don't keep a strangle holt on his money,
neither."
Which two sentiments were variously expressed again and again before the
bottoms of the bottles were reached.
If Foley was slow in getting started, he was not slow to act now that he
was started. During the following two weeks any contractor that so
wished could have worked non-union men on his jobs for all the trouble
Foley would have given him. Buck had more important affairs than the
union's affairs.
Foley's method of electioneering was even more simple than Tom's. He saw
the foreman on every important job in the city. To such as were his
friends he said:
"Any o' that Keating nonsense bein' talked on this job?" If there was
not: "Well, it's up to youse to see that things stay that way." If there
was: "Shut it up. If any o' the men talk too loud, fire 'em. If youse
ain't got that authority, find somethin' wrong with their work an' get
'em fired. It's your business to see that not a man on your job votes
again' me!"
To such few as he did not count among his friends he said:
"Youse know enough to know I'm goin' to win. Youse know what's the wise
thing for youse to do, all right. I like my friends, an' I don't like
the men that fight me. I ain't likely to go much out o' my way to help
Keating an' his push. I think that's enough, ain't it?"
It was--especially since it was said with a cold look straight into the
other's eyes. An hour's speech could not have been more effective.
Foley made it his practice to see as many of the doubtful workmen as
possible during their lunch hour. He had neither hope nor desire that
they should come out and vote for him. His wish was merely that they
should not come out and vote for Tom. To them his speech was mainly
obvious threats. And he called upon the rank and file of his followers
to help him in this detail of his campaign. "Just tell 'em youse think
they won't enjoy the meetin' very much," was his instruction, given with
a grim smile; and this opinion, with effective elaboration, his
followers faithfully delivered.
When Foley dropped into his office on the Tuesday night before election
he found Jake, Connelly and the other members of his cabinet anxiously
awaiting him. Connelly thrust a copy of Tom's letter into his hands.
"Now wha' d'you think o' that?" he demanded. "Blamed nigh every man in
the union got one to-night."
As Foley read the blood crept into his face. "'Bully,' 'blood-suckin'
grafter', 'trade union pirate', 'come out and make him walk the plank',"
Jake quoted appreciatively, watching Foley's face.
By the time he reached the end Foley had regained his self-control.
"Well, that's a purty nice piece o' writin', ain't it, now?" he said,
looking at the sheet admiringly. "Didn't know Keating was buttin' into
literchure. Encouragin', ain't it, to see authors springin' up in every
walk o' life. This here'll get Keating the votes o' all the lit'ry
members, sure."
"It'll get him too many!" growled Connelly anxiously.
"A-a-h, go count yourself, Connelly!" Foley looked at the secretary with
a pity that was akin to disgust. "Youse give me an unpleasant feelin' in
my abdomen!"
He pushed the letter carelessly across to Connelly. "O' course it'll
bring the boys out," he said, in his previous pleasant voice. "But the
trouble with Keating is, he believes in the restriction o' output. He
believes a man oughtn't to cast more'n one vote a day."
But Foley, for all his careless jocularity, was aware of the seriousness
of Tom's last move, and till long after midnight the cabinet was in
session--to the great profit of Barney Mulligan's cash register.
Chapter XII
THE ELECTION
Tom set out for Potomac Hall Wednesday evening with the emotions of a
gambler who had placed his fortune on a single color; his all was risked
on the event of that night. However, he had a bracing confidence running
through his agitation; he felt that he controlled the arrow of fortune.
The man to man canvass; the feminine influence made operative by Mrs.
Barry; the letters with which Ruth had helped him,--these, he was
certain, had drawn the arrow's head to the spot where rested his stake
and the union's.
Tom reached the hall at six-thirty. The polls did not open till seven,
but already thirty or forty of Foley's men stood in knots in front of
the building.
"Hello, boys! Now don't he think he's It!" said one admiringly.
"Poor Buck! This's the last o' him!" groaned another.
There was a burst of derisive laughter, and each of the party tossed a
bit of language in his way; but Tom made no answer and passed them
unflinchingly. At the doorway he was stopped by the policeman who was
regularly stationed at Potomac Hall on meeting nights.
"Goin' to have a fist sociable to-night?" the policeman asked,
anxiously watching the men in the street.
"Can't say, Murphy. Ask Foley. He'll be floor manager, if there is one."
As he went through the hallway toward the stairs, Tom paused to glance
through a side door into the big bar-room, which, with a café, occupied
the whole of the first floor. A couple of score of Foley men stood at
the bar and sat about the tables. It certainly did look as if there
might be festivities.
Tom mounted the broad stairway and knocked at the door of the union's
hall. Hogan, the sergeant-at-arms, a Foley man, gingerly admitted him.
The hall in which he found himself was a big rectangular room, perhaps
fifty by one hundred feet. The walls had once been maroon in color, and
had a broad moulding of plaster that had been white and gilt; the
ceiling had likewise once been maroon, and was decorated with
plaster scroll-work and crudely painted clusters of fruits and
flowers--scroll-work and paintings lacking their one-time freshness.
From the center of the ceiling hung a great ball of paper roses; at the
front of the room was a grand piano in a faded green cover. The sign
advertising the hall, nailed on the building's front, had as its last
clause: "Also available for weddings, receptions, and balls."
Tom's glance swept the room. All was in readiness for the election. The
floor was cleared of its folding chairs, they being now stacked at the
rear of the room; down the hall's middle ran a row of tables, set end to
end, with chairs on either side; Bill Jackson, one of his supporters,
was at Hogan's elbow, ready to hand out the ballots as the men were
admitted; the five tellers--Barry, Pete, Jake and two other Foley
men--were smoking at the front of the room, Jake lolling on the piano,
and the other four on the platform where the officers sat at the regular
meetings.
Tom joined Pete and Barry, and the three drew to one side to await the
opening of the door. "Anything new?" Tom asked.
"Nothin'," answered Pete. "But say, Tom, that letter was certainly hot
stuff! I've heard some o' the boys talkin' about it. They think it's
great. It's bringin' a lot o' them out."
"That's good."
"An' we're goin' to win, sure."
Tom nodded. "If Foley don't work some of his tricks."
"Oh, we'll look out for that," said Pete confidently.
Promptly at seven o'clock Hogan unlocked the door. The men began to
mount the stairway. As each man came to the door Hogan examined his
membership card, and, if it showed the holder to be in good standing,
admitted him. Jackson then handed him a ballot, on which the names of
all the candidates were printed in a vertical row, and he walked to one
of the tables and made crosses before the names of the men for whom he
desired to vote.
Five minutes after the door had been opened there were thirty or forty
men in the room, an equal number of each party, Foley among them. Jake,
who was chief teller, rose at the center table on the platform to
discharge the formality of offering the ballot-box for inspection. He
unlocked the box, which was about twelve inches square, and performing a
slow arc presented the open side to the eyes of the tellers and the
waiting members. The box was empty.
"All right?" he asked.
"Sure," said the men carelessly. The tellers nodded.
Foley began the telling of a yarn, and was straightway the center of the
group of voters. In the meantime Jake locked the box and started to
carry it to its appointed place on a table at one end of the platform,
to reach which he had to pass through the narrow space between the wall
and the chair-backs of the other tellers. As he brushed through this
alley, Tom, whose eyes had not left him, saw the ballot-box turn so that
its slot was toward the wall, and glimpsed a quick motion of Jake's hand
from a pocket toward the slot--a motion wholly of the wrist. He sprang
after the chief teller and seized his hand.
"You don't work that game!" he cried.
Foley's story snapped off. His hearers pivoted to face the disturbance.
Jake turned about. "What game?"
"Open your hand!" Tom demanded.
Jake elevated his big fist, then opened it. It held nothing. He laughed
derisively, and set the box down in its place. A jeering shout rose from
Foley's crowd.
For an instant Tom was taken aback. Then he stepped quickly to the
table and gave the box a light shake. He triumphantly raised it on high
and shook it violently. From it there came an unmistakable rattle.
"This's how Foley'd win!" he cried to the crowd.
Jake, his derision suddenly changed to fury, would have struck Tom in
another instant, for all his wits were in his fists; but the incisive
voice of Foley sounded out: "A clever trick, Keating."
"How's that?" asked several men.
"A trick to cast suspicion on us," Foley answered quietly. "Keating put
'em in there himself."
Tom stared at him, then turned sharply upon Jake. "Give me the key. I'll
show who those ballots are for."
Jake, not understanding, but taking his cue from Foley, handed over the
key. Tom unlocked the box, and took out a handful of tightly-folded
ballots. He opened several of them and held them up to the crowd. The
crosses were before the Foley candidates.
"Of course I put 'em in!" Tom said sarcastically, looking squarely at
Foley.
"O' course youse did," Foley returned calmly. "To cast suspicion on us.
It's a clever trick, but it's what I call dirty politics."
Tom made no reply. His eyes had caught a slight bulge in the pocket of
Jake's coat from which he had before seen Jake's hand emerge
ballot-laden. He lunged suddenly toward the chief teller, and thrust a
hand into the pocket. There was a struggle of an instant; the crowd saw
Tom's hand come out of the pocket filled with packets of paper; then
Tom broke loose. It all happened so quickly that the crowd had no time
to move. The tellers rose just in time to lay hands upon Jake, who was
hurling himself upon Tom in animal fury.
Tom held the ballots out toward Foley. They were bound in packets half
an inch thick by narrow bands of papers which were obviously to be
snapped as the packet was thrust into the slot of the box. "I suppose
you'll say now, Buck Foley, that I put these in Henderson's pocket!"
For once Foley was at a loss. Part of the crowd cursed and hissed him.
His own men looked at him expectantly, but the trickery was too apparent
for his wits to be of avail. He glared straight ahead, rolling his cigar
from side to side of his mouth.
Tom tossed the ballots into the open box. "Enough votes there already to
elect Foley. Now I demand another teller instead of that man." He jerked
his head contemptuously toward Jake.
Foley's composure was with him again. "Anything to please youse, Tom. I
guess nobody's got a kick again' Connelly. Connelly, youse take Jake's
place."
As the exchange was being made the Foleyites regarded their leader
dubiously; not out of disapproval of his trickery, but because his
attempted jugglery had failed. Foley had recourse again to his
confidence-compelling glance--eyes narrowed and full of mystery. "It's
only seven-thirty, boys!" he said in an impressive whisper, and turned
and went out. Jake glowered at Tom and followed him.
Tom transferred the ballots from the box to his pockets, locked the box,
turned over the key to the tellers, and was resuming his seat when he
saw a man of disordered dress at the edge of the platform, who had been
anxiously awaiting the end of this episode, beckoning him. Tom quickly
stepped to his side. "What's the matter?"
"Hell's broke loose downstairs, Tom," said the man. "Come down."
"Look out for any more tricks," Tom called to Pete, and hurried out. The
stairway was held from top to bottom by a line of Foley men. Foley
supporters were marching up, trading rough jests with these guardsmen;
but not a single man of his was on the stairs. He saw one of his men
start up, and receive a shove in the chest that sent him upon his back.
A laugh rose from the line. Tom's fists knotted and his eyes filled with
fire. The head guardsman tried to seize him, and got one of the fists in
the face.
"Look out, you----!" He swore mightily at the line, and plunged downward
past the guards, who were held back by a momentary awe. The man below
rose to his feet, hotly charged, and was sent staggering again. Tom,
descending, caught the assailant by the collar, and with a powerful jerk
sent him sprawling upon the floor. He turned fiercely upon the line. But
before he could even speak, half of it charged down upon him, overbore
him and swept him through the open door into the street. Then they
melted away from him and returned to their posts.
Tom, bruised and dazed, would have followed the men back through the
doorway, but his eyes came upon a new scene. On his either hand in the
street, which was weakly illumined by windows and corner lights, several
scuffles were going on, six or seven in each; groups of Foley men were
blocking the way of his supporters, and blows and high words were
passing; farther away he could dimly see his men standing about in
hesitant knots--having not the reckless courage to attempt passage
through such a rowdy sea.
The policeman was trying to quell one of the scuffles with his club. Tom
saw it twisted from his hand. Murphy drew his revolver. The club sent it
spinning. He turned and walked quickly out of the street.
All this Tom saw in two glances. The man beside him swore. "Send for the
police, Tom. Nothing else'll save us." His voice barely rose above the
cries and oaths.
"It won't do, Smith. We'd never hear the last of it."
And yet Tom realized, with instant quickness, the hopelessness of the
situation. Against Foley's organized ruffianism, holding hall and
street, his unorganized supporters, standing on the outskirts, could do
nothing. There was but one thing to be done--to get to his men, organize
them in some way, wait till their number had grown, and then march in a
body to the ballot-box.
Ten seconds after his discharge into the street Tom was springing away
on this errand, when out of the tail of his eye he saw Foley come to the
door and glance about. He wheeled and strode up to the walking
delegate.
"Is this your only way of winning an election?" he cried hotly.
"Well! well! They're mixin' it up a bit, ain't they," Foley drawled,
looking over Tom's head. "That's too bad!"
"Don't try any of your stage business on me! Stop this fighting!"
"What could I do?" Foley asked deprecatingly. "If I tried, I'd only get
my nut cracked." And he turned back into the hall.
"Come on!" Tom cried to Smith; and together they plunged eastward, in
which direction were the largest number of Tom's friends. Before they
had gone a dozen paces they were engulfed in the fray. Several of his
men swept in from the outskirts to his support; more Foley men rushed
into the conflict; the fight that had before been waged in skirmishes
was now a general engagement. For a space that seemed an hour to Tom,
but that in reality was no more than its quarter, it was struggle at the
top of his strength. He warded off blows. He stung under fists. He
struck out at dim faces. He swayed fiercely in grappling arms. He sent
men down. He went down again and again himself. And oaths were gasped
and shouted, and deep-lunged cries battered riotously against the
street's high walls.... And so it was all around him--a writhing,
striking, kicking, swearing whirlpool of men, over whose fierce
turbulence fell the dusky light of bar-room and tenement windows.
After a time, when his breath was coming in gasps, and his strength was
well-nigh gone, he saw the vindictive face of Jake Henderson, with the
bar-room's light across it, draw nearer and nearer through the
struggling mob. If Jake should reach him, spent as he was----He saw his
limp, outstretched body as in a vision.
But Jake's vengeance did not then fall. Tom heard a cry go up and run
through the crowd: "Police! Police!" In an instant the whirlpool half
calmed. The cry brought to their feet the two men who had last borne him
down. Tom scrambled up, saw the mob untangle itself into individuals,
and saw, turning the corner, a squad of policemen, clubs drawn, Murphy
marching at the captain's side.
The captain drew his squad up beside the doorway of the hall, and
himself mounted the two steps. "If there's any more o' this rough house,
I'll run in every one o' you!" he shouted, shaking his club at the men.
The Foleyites laughed, and defiance buzzed among them, but they knew the
better part of valor. It was a Foley principle to observe the law when
the law is observing you.
Five minutes later the captain's threat was made even more potent for
order by the appearance of the reserves from another precinct; and in a
little while still another squad leaped from clanging patrol wagons,
making in all fifty policemen that had answered Murphy's call. Twenty of
these were posted in the stairway, and the rest were placed on guard in
the street.
A new order came from the bar-room, and Foley's men withdrew to beyond
the limits of police influence and intercepted the men coming to vote,
using blandishment and threats, and leading some into the bar-room to be
further convinced.
Tom, who stood outside watching the restoration of order, now started
back to the hall. On the way he glanced through the side door into the
bar-room. It was heavy with smoke, and at the bar was a crowd, with
Foley as its center. "I don't know what youse think about Keating
callin' in the police," he was saying, "but youse can bet I know what
Buck Foley thinks! A man that'll turn the police on his own union!" And
then as a fresh group of men were led into the room: "Step right up to
the counter, boys, an' have your measure taken for a drink. I've bought
out the place, an' am givin' it away. Me an' Carnegie's tryin' to die
poor."
Tom mounted to the hall with a secret satisfaction in the protection of
the broad-chested bluecoats that now held the stairway. A fusillade of
remarks from the men marking their ballots greeted his entrance, but he
passed up to the platform without making answers.
Pete's mouth fell agape at sight of him. "Hello! You look like you been
ticklin' a grizzly under the chin!"
Tom noted the relishing grins of the Foley tellers. "The trouble
downstairs is all over. I'll tell you all about it after awhile," he
said shortly; and sat down just behind Pete to watch the voting.
Up to this time the balloting had been light. But now the hall began to
fill, and the voting proceeded rapidly--and orderly, too, thanks to the
policemen on stairway and in street. Tom, his clothes "lookin' like he
tried to take 'em off without unbuttonin'," as a Foley teller whispered,
his battered hat down over his eyes, sat tilted against the wall
scanning every man that filed past the box. As man after man had his
membership card stamped "voted," and dropped in his ballot, Tom's
excitement rose, for he recognized the majority of the men that marched
by as of his following.
At nine o'clock Pete leaned far back in his chair. "Lookin' great, ain't
it?" he whispered.
"If it only keeps up like this." That it might not was Tom's great fear
now.
"Oh, it will, don't you worry."
The line of voters that marched by, and by, bore out Pete's prediction,
as Tom's counting eyes saw. He had the wild exultation and throbbing
weakness of the man who is on the verge of success. But the possibility
of failure, the cause of his weakness, became less and less as time
ticked on and the votes dropped into the ballot box. His enthusiasm
grew. Dozens of plans flashed through his head. But his eyes never left
that string of men who were deciding his fate and that of the union.
At half past ten Tom was certain of his election. Pete leaned back and
gripped his hand. "It's a cinch, Tom. It's a shame to take the money,"
he whispered.
Tom acquiesced in Pete's conviction with a jerk of his head, and watched
the passing line, now grown thin and slow, drop in their ballots, his
certainty growing doubly sure.
Fifteen minutes later Foley entered the hall, whispered a moment with
Hogan at the door, a moment with Connelly, and then went out again. Tom
thought he saw anxiety showing through Foley's ease of manner, and to
him it was an advance taste of triumph.
Tom wished eleven o'clock had come and the door was locked. The minutes
passed with such exhausting slowness. A straggling voter dropped in his
ballot--and another straggler--and another. Tom looked at his watch. Two
minutes had passed since Foley's visit. Another straggling voter. And
then four men appeared in a body at the hall door, all apparently the
worse for Foley's hospitality. Tom saw the foremost present his card.
Hogan glanced at it, and handed it back. "You can't vote that card; it's
expired," Tom heard him say.
"What's that?" demanded the man, threateningly.
"The card's expired, I said! You can't vote it! Get out!"
"I can't vote it, hey!" There was an oath, a blow--a surprisingly light
blow to produce such an effect, so it seemed to Tom--and Hogan staggered
back and went to the floor. There was a scuffle; the tables on which lay
the ballots toppled over, and the ballots went fluttering. By this time
Tom reached the door, policemen had rushed in and settled the scuffle,
and the four men were being led from the room.
Hogan was unhurt, but Jackson was so dazed from a blow that Tom had to
put another man in his place.
The minutes moved toward eleven with slow, ticking steps. Two stragglers
... at long intervals. At a few minutes before eleven the exhausting
monotony was enlivened by the entrance of eight men, singing
boisterously and jostling each other in alcoholic jollity. They marked
their ballots and staggered in a group to the ballot-box. Two tried to
deposit their ballots at once.
"Leave me alone, will youse!" cried one, with an oath, and struck at the
other.
The ballot-box slipped across to the edge of the table. Connelly, who
sat just behind the box, made no move for its safety. "Hey, stop that!"
cried Pete and sprang across to seize it. But he was too late. The one
blow struck, the eight were all instantly delivering blows, and pushing
and swearing. The box was knocked forward upon the floor, and the eight
sprawled pell-mell upon it.
Tom and the tellers sprang from behind the tables upon the scuffling
heap, and several policemen rushed in from the hallway. The men, once
dragged apart, subsided and gave no trouble. They were allowed to drop
their ballots in the box, now back in its place on the table, and were
then led out in quietness by the officers.
Pete turned about, struck with a sudden fear. "I wonder if that was a
trick?" he whispered.
Tom's face was pale. The same fear had come to him. "I wonder!"
In another five minutes the door was locked and the tellers were
counting the ballots. Among the first hundred there were perhaps a score
that bore no mark except a cross before Foley's name. Pete looked again
at Tom. With both fear had been replaced by certainty.
"The box's been stuffed!" Pete whispered.
Tom nodded.
His only hope now was that not enough false ballots had been got into
the box to carry the election. But as the count proceeded, this hope
left him. And the end was equal to his worst fears. The count stood: for
walking delegate, Foley 976, Keating 763; for president, Keating 763,
Foley's man 595; all the other Foley candidates won by a slight margin.
The apparent inconsistencies of this count Tom readily understood even
in the first wild minutes. Foley's running ahead of his ticket was to be
explained on the ground that the brief time permitted of a cross being
put before his name alone on the false ballots; his own election to the
unimportant presidency, and the failure of his other candidates, was
evidently caused by several of his followers splitting their tickets and
voting for the minor Foley candidates.
As the count had proceeded Tom had exploded more than once, and Pete had
made lurid use of his gift. When Connelly read off the final results Tom
exploded again.
"It's an infernal steal!" he shouted.
"Even if it is, what can we do?" returned Connelly.
Words ran high. But Tom quickly saw the uselessness of protests and
accusations at this time. His great desire now was to take his heat and
disappointment out into the street; and so he gave evasive answers to
Pete and Barry, who wanted to talk it over, and made his way out of the
hall alone.
Cheers and laughter were ascending from the bar-room. As he was half-way
down the stairs the door of the saloon opened, and Foley came out and
started up, followed by a number of men. Among them Tom saw several of
the drunken group that had upset the ballot-box; and he also saw that
they probably had not been more sober in years.
"Why, hello, Tom!" Foley cried out on sight of him. "D'youse hear the
election returns?"
Tom looked hard at Foley's face with its leering geniality, and he was
almost overmastered by a desire to hurl himself upon Foley and
annihilate him. "You infernal thief!" he burst out.
Foley sidled toward him across the broad step. "I'll pass that by. I can
afford to, for youse're about wiped out. I guess youse've had enough."
"Enough?" cried Tom. "I've just begun!"
With that he brushed by Foley and passed through the door out into the
street.
Chapter XIII
THE DAY AFTER
The distance to Tom's home was half a hundred blocks, but he chose to
walk. Anger, disappointment, and underlying these the hopeless sense of
being barred from his trade, all demanded the sympathy of physical
exertion--and, too, there was the inevitable meeting with his wife.
Walking would give him an hour before that.
It was after one when he opened the hall door and stepped into his flat.
Through the dining-room he could see the gas in the sitting-room was
turned down to a point, and could see Maggie lying on the couch, a
flowered comforter drawn over her. He guessed she had stayed up to wait
for his report. He listened. In the night's dead stillness he could
faintly hear her breath come deep and regular. Seizing at the chance of
postponing the scene, he cautiously closed the hall door, and, sitting
down on a chair beside it, removed his shoes. He crossed on tiptoe
toward their bedroom, but its door betrayed him by a creak. He turned
quickly about. There was Maggie, propped up on one arm, the comforter
thrown back.
She looked at him for a space without speaking. Through all his other
feelings Tom had a sense that he made anything but a brave figure,
standing in his stocking feet, his shoes in one hand, hat and overcoat
on.
"Well?" she demanded at length.
Tom returned her fixed gaze, and made no reply to her all-inclusive
query.
Her hands gripped her covering. She gave a gasp. Then she threw back the
comforter and slipped to her feet.
"I understand!" she said. "Everything! I knew it! O-o-h!" There were
more resentment and recrimination packed into that prolonged "oh" than
she could have put into an hour's upbraiding.
Tom kept himself in hand. He knew the futility of explanation, but he
explained. "I won, fairly. But Foley robbed me. He stuffed the
ballot-box."
"It makes no difference how you lost! You lost! That's what I've got to
face. You know I didn't want you to go into this. I knew you couldn't
win. I knew Foley was full of tricks. But you went in. You lost wages.
You threw away money--_our_ money! And what have you got to show for it
all?"
Tom let her words pass in silence. On his long walk he had made up his
mind to bear her fury quietly.
"Oh, you!" she cried through clenched teeth, stamping a bare foot on the
floor. "You do what you please, and I suffer for it. You wouldn't take
my advice. And now you're out of a job and can't get one in your trade.
How are we to live? Tell me that, Tom Keating? How are we to live?"
Only the word he had passed with himself enabled Tom to hold himself in
after this outburst. "I'll find work."
"Find work! A hod-carrier! Oh, my God!"
She turned and flung herself at full length upon the couch, and lay
there sobbing, her hands passionately gripping the comforter.
Tom silently watched the workings of her passion for a moment. He
realized the measure of right on her side, and his sense of justice made
his spirit unbend. "If we have to live close, it'll only be for a time,"
he said.
"Oh, my God!" she moaned.
He grimly turned and went into the bedroom. After a while he came out
again. She had drawn the comforter over her, but her irregular breathing
told him she was still awake.
"Aren't you coming to bed?" he asked.
She made no answer, and he went back. For half an hour he tossed about.
Then he came into the sitting-room again. Her breath was coming quietly
and regularly. He sat down and gazed at her handsome face for a long,
long time, with misty, wondering thoughts. Then he rose with a
deep-drawn sigh, took part of the covering from the bed, and spread it
over her sleeping figure.
He tossed about long before he fell into a restless sleep. It was early
when he awoke. He looked into the sitting-room. Maggie was still
sleeping. He quickly dressed himself in his best suit (the one he had
had on the night before was beyond further wearing), noting with
surprise that his face bore few marks of conflict, and stole quietly
out.
Tom's disappointment and anger were too fresh to allow him to put his
mind upon plans for the future. All day he wandered aimlessly about,
talking over the events of the previous night with such of his friends
as chance put in his path. Late in the afternoon he met Pete and Barry,
who had been looking for work since morning. They sat down in a saloon
and talked about the election till dinner time. It was decided that Tom
should protest the election and appeal to the union--a move they all
agreed had little promise. Tom found a soothing gratification in Pete's
verbal handling of the affair; there was an ease, a broadness, a
completeness, to Pete's profanity that left nothing to be desired; so
that Tom was prompted to remark, with a half smile: "If there was a
professorship of your kind of English over at Columbia University, Pete,
you'd never have to put on overalls again."
Tom had breakfasted in a restaurant, and lunched in a restaurant, and
after Pete and Barry left he had dinner in one. It was a cheap and
meager meal; with his uncertain future he felt it wise to begin to count
every cent. Afterwards he walked about the streets till eight, bringing
up at Ruth's boarding-house. The colored maid who answered his ring
brought back the message: "Miss Arnold says will you please come up."
He mounted the stairway behind the maid. Ruth was standing at the head
of the stairs awaiting him.
She wore a loose white gown, held in at the waist by a red girdle, and
there was a knot of red in her heavy dark hair. Tom felt himself go warm
at sight of her, and there began a throbbing that beat even in his ears.
"You don't mind my receiving you in my room, do you?" she said, opening
her door, after she had greeted him.
"Why, no," said Tom, slightly puzzled. His acquaintance with the
proprieties was so slight that he did not know she was then breaking
one.
She closed the door. "I'm glad to see you. I know what happened last
night; we heard at the office." She held out her hand again. The grip
was warm and full of sympathy.
The hand sent a thrill through Tom. In his fresh disappointment it was
just this intelligent sympathy that he was hungry for. For a moment he
was unable to speak or move.
She gently withdrew her hand. "But we heard only the bare fact. I want
you to tell me the whole story."
Tom laid his hat and overcoat upon the couch, which had a dull green
cover, glancing, as he did so, about the room. There were a few prints
of good pictures on the walls; a small case of books; a writing desk;
and in one corner a large screen whose dominant color was a dull green.
The thing that struck him most was the absence of the knick-knackery
with which his home was decorated. Tom was not accustomed to give
attention to his surroundings, but the room pleased him; and yet it was
only an ordinary boarding-house room, plus the good taste of a tasteful
woman.
Tom took one of the two easy chairs in the room, and once again went
over the happenings of the previous night. She interrupted again and
again with indignant exclamations.
"Why, you didn't lose at all!" she cried, when he had finished the
episode of the eight drunken men.
"You won, and it was stolen from you! Your Mr. Foley is a--a----"
Whichever way she turned for an adequate word she ran against a
restriction barring its use by femininity. "A robber!" she ended.
"But aren't you going to protest the election?"
"I shall--certainly. But there's mighty little chance of the result
being changed. Foley'll see to that."
He tried to look brave, but Ruth guessed the bitterness within. She
yearned to have him talk over things with her; her sympathy for him now
that she beheld him dispirited after a daring fight was even warmer than
when she had seen him pulsing with defiant vigor. "Won't you tell me
what you are going to do? If you don't mind."
"I'd tell if I knew. But I hardly have my bearings yet."
"Are you sure you can't work at your trade?"
"Not unless I kiss Foley's shoes."
She did not like to ask him if he were going to give in, but the
question was in her face, and he saw it.
"I'm not that bad licked yet."
"There's Mr. Driscoll's offer," she suggested.
"Yes. I've thought of that. I don't know what move I'll make next. I
don't just see now how I'm going to keep at the fight, but I'm not ready
to give it up. If I took Mr. Driscoll's job, I'd have to drop the fight,
for I'd practically have to drop out of the union. If the protest
fails--well, we'll see."
Ruth looked at him thoughtfully, and she thrilled with a personal pride
in him. He had been beaten; the days just ahead looked black for him;
but his spirit, though exhausted, was unbroken. As a result of her
experience she was beginning to regard business as being largely a
compromise between self-respect and profit. In Tom's place she guessed
what Mr. Baxter would do, and she knew what Mr. Driscoll would do; and
the thing they would do was not the thing that Tom was doing. And she
wondered what would be the course of Mr. Berman.
At the moment of parting she said to him, in her frank, impulsive way:
"I think you are the bravest man I have ever known." He could only
stumble away from her awkwardly, for to this his startled brain had no
proper answer. His courage began to bubble back into him; and the warmth
aroused by her words grew and grew--till he drew near his home, and then
a chill began to settle about him.
Maggie was reading the installment of a serial story in an evening paper
when he came in. She glanced up, then quickly looked back at her paper
without speaking.
He started into the bedroom in silence, but paused hesitant in the
doorway and looked at her. "What are you reading, Maggie?"
"The Scarlet Stain."
He held his eyes upon her a moment longer, and then with a sigh went
into the bedroom and lit the gas. The instant he was gone from the
doorway Maggie took her eyes from the story and listened irresolutely.
All day her brain had burnt with angry thoughts, and all day she had
been waiting the chance to speak. But her obstinate pride now strove to
keep her tongue silent.
"Tom!" she called out, at length.
He appeared in the doorway. "Yes."
"What are you going to do?"
He was silent for a space. "I don't just know yet."
"I know," she said in a voice she tried to keep cold and steady.
"There's only one thing for you to do. That's to get on the square with
Foley."
Their eyes met. Hers were cold, hard, rebellious.
"I'll think it over," he said quietly; and went back into the bedroom.
Chapter XIV
NEW COURAGE AND NEW PLANS
The next morning after breakfast Tom sat down to take account of his
situation. But his wife's sullen presence, as she cleared away the
dishes, suffocated his thoughts. He went out and walked south a few
blocks to a little park that had formerly served the neighborhood as a
burying-ground. A raw wind was chattering among the bare twigs of the
sycamore trees; the earth was a rigid shell from the night's frost, and
its little squares and oblongs of grass were a brownish-gray; the sky
was overcast with gray clouds. The little park, this dull March day, was
hardly more cheerful than the death it had erewhile housed, but Tom sat
down in its midst with a sense of grateful relief.
His mind had already passed upon Maggie's demand of the previous
evening. But would it avail to continue the fight against Foley? He had
slept well, and the sleep had strengthened his spirit and cleared his
brain; and Ruth's recurring words, "I think you are the bravest man I
have ever known," were to him a determining inspiration. He went over
the situation detail by detail, and slowly a new plan took shape.
Foley had beaten him by a trick. In six months there would be another
election. He would run again, and this next time, profiting by his dear
experience of Wednesday night, he would see that guard was set against
every chance for unfair play. During the six months he would hammer at
Foley's every weak spot, and emphasize to the union the discredit of
Foley's discreditable acts.
He would follow up his strike agitation. He had already put Foley into
opposition to a demand for more money. If he could induce the union to
make the demand in the face of Foley's opposition it would be a telling
victory over the walking delegate. Perhaps, even, he might head the
management of the strike--if it came to a strike. And if the strike were
won, it would be the complete undoing of Foley. As for Maggie, she would
oppose the plan, of course, but once he had succeeded she would approve
what he had done. In the meantime he would have to work at some poorly
paid labor, and appease her as best he could.
At dinner that night little was said, till Maggie asked with a choking
effort: "Did you see Foley to-day?"
"No," said Tom. He ate a mouthful, then laid down knife and fork, and
looked firmly into her face. "I didn't try to see him. And I might as
well tell you, Maggie, that I'm not going to see him."
"You'll not see him?" she asked in a dry voice. "You'll not see him?"
"Most likely it would not do any good if I did see him. You mark what I
say, Maggie," he went on, hopefully. "Foley thinks I'm down, and you
do, too, but in a few months things'll be better than they ever were. We
may see some hard times--but in the end!"
"You were just that certain last week. But how'll we live?"
"I'll find some sort of a temporary job."
She looked at him tensely; then she rose abruptly and carried her
indignant grief into the kitchen. She had decided that he must be borne
with. But would he never, never come to his senses!
After he had finished his dinner, which had been ready earlier than
usual, Tom hurried to the Barrys', and found the family just leaving the
table. He rapidly sketched his new plan.
"You're runnin' again' Foley again in six months is all right, but
where's the use our tryin' to get more money?" grumbled Pete. "Suppose
we fight hard an' win the strike. What then? We get nothin' out of it.
Foley won't let us work."
"Oh, talk like a man, Pete!" requested Mrs. Barry. "You know you don't
think that way."
"If we win the strike, with Foley against it, it'll be the end of him,"
said Tom, in answer to Pete.
"But suppose things turn out with Foley in control o' the strike?"
questioned Barry.
"That won't happen. But if it would, he'd run it all on the square. And
he'd manage it well, too. You know what he has done. Well, he'd do the
same again if he was forced into a fight.
"It won't be hard to work the men up to make the demand for an
increase," Tom went on. "All the men who voted for me are in favor of
it, and a lot more, too. All we've got to do is to stir them up a bit,
and get word to them to come out on a certain night. Foley'll hardly
dare put up a fight against us in the open."
"Whoever runs the strike, we certainly ought to have more money," said
Mrs. Barry decidedly.
"And the bosses can afford to give us more," declared Tom. "They've
never made more than they have the last two years."
"Sure, they could divide a lot o' the money we've made with us, an'
still not have to button up their own clothes," averred Mrs. Barry.
"Oh, I dunno," said Pete. "They're hard up, just the same as us. What's
a hundred thousand when you've got to spend money on yachts, champagne
an' Newport, an' other necessities o' life? The last time I was at the
Baxters', Mrs. Baxter was settin' at the kitchen table figgerin' how she
could make over the new dress she had last summer an' wonderin' how
she'd ever pay the gas bill."
Mrs. Barry grunted.
"I got a picture o' her!"
Tom brought the talk back to bear directly upon his scheme, and soon
after left, accompanied by Pete, to begin immediately his new campaign.
As soon as they had gone Mrs. Barry turned eagerly to her husband. "If
we get that ten per cent. raise, Henry won't have to go to work when
he's fourteen like we expected."
"Yes. I was thinkin' o' that."
"An' we could keep him in school mebbe till he's eighteen. Then he
could get a place in some office or business. By that time Annie'll be
old enough to go to normal college. She can go through there and learn
to be a teacher."
"An' mebbe I can get you some good clothes, like I've always wanted to."
"Oh, you! D'you think you can buy everything with seventy dollars!" She
leaned over with glowing eyes and kissed him.
Rapid work was required by the new campaign, for Tom had settled upon
the first meeting in April as the time when he would have the demand for
more wages put to a vote. The new campaign, however, would be much
easier than the one that had just come to so disastrous an ending. As he
had said, the men were already eager to make the demand for more money;
his work was to unite this sentiment into a movement, and to urge upon
the men that they be out to vote on the first Wednesday in April.
Tom's first step was to enlist the assistance of the nine other men who
had helped him in his fight against Foley. He found that the vengeance
of the walking delegate had been swift; seven had abruptly lost their
jobs. When he had explained his new plan, eight of the nine were with
him. The spirit of the ninth was gone.
"I've had enough," he said bitterly. "If I hadn't mixed in with you, I'd
be all right now." Upon this man Tom promptly turned his back. He was an
excellent ally to be without.
Tom, with Pete, Barry, and his eight other helpers, began regularly to
put in each evening in calling upon the members of the union. Every man
they saw was asked to talk to others. And so the word spread and spread.
And to Foley it came among the first. Jake Henderson heard it whispered
about the St. Etienne Hotel Saturday, and when the day's work was done
he hurried straight to Foley's home in order to be certain of catching
Buck when he came in to dinner. He had to wait half an hour, but that
time was not unpleasantly spent, inasmuch as Mrs. Foley set forth a
bottle of beer.
When Foley caught the tenor of Jake's story his face darkened and he let
out an oath. But immediately thereafter he caught hold of his
excitement. While Jake talked Foley's mind worked rapidly. He did not
want a strike for three sufficient reasons. First of all, that the move
was being fathered by Tom was enough to make him its opponent. Secondly,
he had absolutely nothing to gain from a strike; his power was great,
and even a successful strike could not add to it. And last, he would
lose financially by it; his arrangement with Baxter and one or two other
contractors would come to an end, and in the management of a general
strike so many persons were involved that he would have no chance to
levy tribute.
Before Jake had finished his rather long-winded account Foley cut him
short. "Yes. I'm glad youse come in. I was goin' to send for youse
to-night about this very thing."
"What! Youse knew all about it already?"
Foley looked surprise at him. "D'youse think I do nothin' but sleep?"
"Nobody can't tell youse anything," said Jake admiringly. "Youse're
right up to the minute."
"Some folks find me a little ahead." He pulled at his cigar. "I got a
little work for youse an' your bunch."
Jake sprang up excitedly. "Not Keating?"
"If youse could guess that well at the races youse'd always pick the
winner. This business's got to stop, an' I guess that's the easiest way
to stop it." And, Foley might have added, the only way.
"He ought to've had it long ago," said Jake, with conviction.
"He'll enjoy it all the more for havin' to wait for it." He stood up,
and Jake, accepting his dismissal, took his hat. "Youse have a few o'
the boys around to-night, an' I'll show up about ten. Four or five ought
to be enough--say Arkansas, Smoky, Kaffir Bill, and Hickey."
Foley saw Connelly and two or three other members of his cabinet during
the evening, and gave orders that the word was to go forth among his
followers that he was against Keating's agitation; he knew the inside
facts of present conditions, and knew there was no chance of winning a
strike. At ten o'clock he sauntered into the rear room of Mulligan's
saloon. Five men were playing poker. With the exception of one they were
a group to make an honest man fall to his knees and quickly confess his
sins. Such a guileless face had the one that the honest man would have
been content with him as confessor. In past days the five had worked a
little, each in his own part of the world, and not liking work had
procured their living in more congenial ways; and on landing in New
York, in the course of their wanderings, they had been gathered in by
Foley as suited to his purpose.
"Hello, Buck!" they called out at sight of Foley.
"Hello, gents," he answered. He locked the door with a private key, and
kicked a chair up to the table.
"Say, Buck, I got a thirst like a barrel o' lime," remarked he of the
guileless face, commonly known as Arkansas Number Two. "D'you know
anything good for it?"
"The amount o' money I spend in a year on other men's drinks'd support a
church," Foley answered. But he ordered a quart of whisky and glasses.
"Now let's get to business," he said, when they had been placed on the
table. "I guess youse've got an idea in your nuts as to what's doin'?"
"Jake put us next," grinned Kaffir Bill. "Keating."
"Yes. He's over-exertin' his throat. He's likely to spoil his voice, if
we don't sorter step in an' stop him."
"But Jake didn't tell us how much youse wanted him to have," said Kaffir
Bill. "Stiff?"
"Not much. Don't youse remember when youse made an undertaker's job out
o' Fleischmann? An' how near youse come to takin' the trip to Sing Sing?
We don't want any more risks o' that sort. Leave your guns at home."
Foley gulped down the raw whisky. "A couple months' vacation'd be about
right for Keating. It'd give him a chance to get acquainted with his
wife."
He drew out a cigar and fitted it to one corner of his mouth. "He's left
handed, youse know. An' anyhow he works mostly with his mouth."
"An' he's purty chesty," said Jake, following up Foley's cue with a
grin.
"That's the idea," said Foley. "A wing, an' say two or three slats. Or a
leg."
The five understood and pledged the faithful discharge of their trust in
a round of drinks.
"But what's in it for us?" asked Arkansas Number Two.
"It's an easy job. Youse get him in a fight, he goes down; youse do the
business with your feet. Say ten apiece. That's plenty."
"Is that all it's worth to you?" Arkansas asked cunningly.
"Make it twenty-five, Buck," petitioned Kaffir Bill. "We need the coin.
What's seventy-five more to youse?"
The other four joined in the request.
"Well, if I don't I s'pose every son-of-a-gun o' youse'll strike," said
Foley, assuming the air of a defeated employer. "All right--for this
once. But this ain't to be the regular union rate."
"You're all to the good, Buck!" the five shouted.
Foley rose and started out. At the door he paused. "Youse can't ask me
for the coin any too soon," he said meaningly.
The five held divergent opinions upon many subjects, but upon one point
they were as one mind--esteem for the bottle. So when Buck's quart of
whisky was exhausted they unanimously decided to remove themselves to
Potomac Hall, in whose bar-room there usually could be found someone
that, after a dark glance or two, was delighted to set out the drinks.
They quickly found a benefactor in the person of Johnson, also a devotee
of the bottle. They were disposing of the third round of drinks when
Pete, who had been attending a meeting of the Membership Committee of
the union, passed through the bar-room on his way out. Jake saw him,
and, three parts drunk, could not resist the opportunity for advance
satisfaction. "Hold on, Pig Iron," he called after him.
Pete stopped, and Jake walked leeringly up to him. "This here----" the
best Jake could do in the way of profanity, "Keating is goin' to get
what's comin' to him!" Jake ended with a few more selections from his
repertoire of swear-words.
Pete retorted in kind, imperatively informing Jake that he knew where he
could go, and walked away. Pete recognized the full meaning of Jake's
words; and a half hour later he was knocking on Tom's door. He found a
tall, raw-boned man sitting in one of Tom's chairs. Maggie had gone to
bed.
"Shake hands with Mr. Petersen, Pete," said Tom sleepily. "He's just
come into the union."
"Glad to know you," said Pete, and offered a hand to the Swede, who took
it without a word. He turned immediately about on Tom. "I guess you're
in for your thumps, Tom." And he told about his meeting with the five
members of the entertainment committee.
"I expected 'em before the election. Well, I'll be ready for 'em," Tom
said grimly.
A light had begun to glow in Petersen's heavy eyes as Pete talked. He
now spoke for the first time since Pete had come in. "Vot day do?" he
asked.
Pete explained in pantomine, thrusting rapid fists close to various
parts of Petersen's face. "About five men on you at once."
Petersen grunted.
When Pete left, the Swede remained in his chair with anxiety showing
through his natural stolidity. Tom gave a helpless glance at him, and
followed Pete out into the hall.
"For God's sake, Pete, help me out!" Tom said in a whisper. "He's the
fellow I helped get into the union. I told you about him, you know. He
came around to-night to tell me he's got a job. When I came in at half
past ten he'd been here half an hour already. It's eleven-thirty now.
And he ain't said ten words. I want to go to bed, but confound him, he
don't know how to leave!"
Pete opened the door. "Say, Petersen, ain't you goin' my way? Come on,
we'll go together."
Petersen rose with obvious relief. He shook hands with Tom in awkward
silence, and together he and Pete went down the stairs.
Monday morning Tom bought the first revolver he had ever possessed. If
he had had any doubt as to the correctness of Pete's news, that doubt
would not have been long with him. During the morning, as he went about
looking for a job, he twice caught a glimpse of three members of the
entertainment committee watching him from the distance; and he knew
they were waiting a safe chance to close in upon him. The revolver in
his inner vest pocket pressed a welcome assurance against his ribs.
That night when he came down from dinner to carry his new plan from ear
to ear, he found Petersen, hands in his overcoat pockets, standing
patiently without the doorway of the tenement.
"Hello, Petersen," he said in surprise.
"Hello," said Petersen.
Tom wanted no repetition of his experience of Saturday night. "Got a lot
of work to do to-night," he said hurriedly. "So-long."
He started away. The Swede, with no further words, fell into step beside
him. For several blocks they walked in silence, then Tom came to a pause
before a tenement in which lived a member of the union.
"Good-by, Petersen," he said.
"Goo'-by," said Petersen.
They shook hands.
When Tom came into the street ten minutes later there was Petersen
standing just where he had left him. Again the Swede fell into step.
Tom, though embarrassed and irritated by the man's silent, persistent
company, held back his words.
At the second stop Tom said shortly: "I'll be here a long while. You
needn't wait."
But when he came down from the call, which he had purposely extended,
Petersen was waiting beside the steps. This was too much for Tom. "Where
are you going?" he demanded.
"'Long you," the Swede answered slowly.
"I don't know's I need you," Tom returned shortly, and started away.
For half a dozen paces there was no sound but his own heel-clicks. Then
he heard the heel-clicks of the Swede. He turned about in exasperation.
"See here! What's your idea in following me around like this?"
Petersen shifted his feet uncomfortably. "De man, last night, he
say----" He finished by placing his bony fists successively on either
side of his jaw. "I tank maybe I be 'long, I be some good."
A light broke in on Tom. And he thought of the photograph on Petersen's
leprous wall. He shoved out his hand. "Put it there, Petersen!" he said.
And all that evening Tom's silent companion marched through the streets
beside him.
Chapter XV
MR. BAXTER HAS A FEW CONFERENCES
Captains of war have it as a common practice to secure information, in
such secret ways as they can, about their opponents' plans and
movements, and to develop their own plans to match these; and this
practice has come into usage among captains of industry. The same
afternoon that Jake brought news of Tom's scheme to Foley, a man of
furtive glance whom a member of the union would have recognized as
Johnson requested the youth in the outer office of Baxter & Co. to carry
his name to the head of the firm.
"Wha' d'youse want to see him 'bout?" demanded the uniform.
"A job."
"No good. He don't hire nobody but the foremen."
"It's a foreman's job I'm after," returned Johnson, glancing about.
The debate continued, but in the end Johnson's name went in to Mr.
Baxter, and Johnson himself soon followed it. When he came out Mr.
Baxter's information was as complete as Buck Foley's.
That evening Johnson's news came into the conversation of Mr. Baxter and
his wife. After dinner she drew him into the library--a real library,
booked to the ceiling on three sides, an open wood fire on the
other--to tell him of a talk she had had that day with chance-met Ruth.
With an aunt's privilege she had asked about the state of affairs
between her and Mr. Berman.
"There's no telling what she's going to do," Mrs. Baxter went on, with a
gentle sigh. "I do hope she'll marry him! People are still talking about
her strange behavior in leaving us to go to work. How I did try to
persuade her not to do it! I knew it would involve us in a scandal. And
the idea of her offering to go to work in your office!"
Mr. Baxter continued to look abstractedly into the grate, as he had
looked ever since she had begun her half-reminiscent strain. Now that
she was ended, she could but note that his mind was elsewhere.
"James!"
"Yes." He turned to her with a start.
"Why, you have not spoken a word to me. Is there something on your
mind?"
He studied the flames for a moment. "I learned this afternoon that the
Iron Workers' Union will probably demand a ten per cent. increase in
wages."
"What! And that means a strike?"
"It doubtless does, unless we grant their demand."
"But can you afford to?"
"We could without actually running at a loss."
Mrs. Baxter was on the board of patronesses of one or two workingwomen's
clubs and was a contributor to several fashionable charities, so
considered herself genuinely thoughtful of the interests of
wage-earners. "If you won't lose anything, I suppose you might as well
increase their salaries. Most of them can use a little more money.
They're respectable people who appreciate everything we do for them. And
you can make it up by charging higher prices."
Mr. Baxter sat silent for a space looking at his wife, quizzically,
admiringly. He was inclined to scoff in his heart at his wife's
philanthropic hobbies, but he indulged her in them as he did in all her
efforts to attain fashionable standing. He had said, lover fashion, in
their courtship days, that she should never have an ungratified wish,
and after a score of years he still held warmly to this promise. He
still admired her; and little wonder, for sitting with her feet
stretched toward the open fire, her blonde head gracefully in one hand,
her brown eyes fixed waitingly on him, looking at least eight less than
her forty-three years, she was absolutely beautiful.
"Elizabeth," he said at length, "do you know how much we spent last
year?"
"No."
"About ninety-three thousand dollars."
"So much as that? But really, it isn't such a big sum. A mere nothing to
what some of our friends spend."
"This year, with our Newport house, it'll be a good thirty thousand
more; one hundred and twenty-five thousand, anyway. Now I can't make the
owners pay the raise, as you seem to think." He smiled slightly at her
business naïveté. "The estimates on the work I'll do this year were all
made on the present scale, and I can't raise the estimates. If the ten
per cent. increase is granted, it'll have to come out of our income. Our
income will be cut down for this year to at least seventy-five thousand.
If things go bad, to fifty thousand."
Mrs. Baxter rose excitedly to her feet. "Why, that's absurd!"
"We'd have to give up the Newport house," he went on, "put the yacht out
of commission and lessen expenses here."
She looked at her husband in consternation. After several years of
effort Mrs. Baxter was just getting into the outer edge of the upper
crust of New York society. At her husband's words she saw all that she
had striven for, and which of late had seemed near of attainment,
withdraw into the shadowy recesses of an uncertain future.
"But we can't cut down!" she cried desperately. "We simply can't! We
couldn't entertain here in the manner we have planned. And we'd have to
go to Atlantic City this summer, or some other such place!--and who goes
to Atlantic City? Why, we'd lose everything we've gained! We can never
give the raise, James. It's simply out of the question!"
"And we won't," said Mr. Baxter, gently tapping a forefinger upon the
beautifully carved arm of his chair.
"Anyhow, suppose we do spend a hundred and twenty-five thousand, why the
working people get everything back in wages," she added ingeniously.
Mr. Baxter realized the economic fallacy of this last statement; but he
refrained from exposing her sophistry since her conscience found
satisfaction in it.
Monday morning, in discharge of his duty as president of the Iron
Employers' Association, Mr. Baxter got Murphy, Bobbs, Isaacs, and
Driscoll, the other four members of the Executive Committee, on the
telephone. At eleven o'clock the five men were sitting around Mr.
Baxter's cherry table. Bobbs, Murphy, and Isaacs already had knowledge
of Tom's plans; Mr. Baxter was not the only one having unionists on his
payroll who performed services other than handling beams and hammering
rivets. Mr. Driscoll alone was surprised when Mr. Baxter stated the
object of calling the committee thus hastily together.
"Why, I thought we'd been assured the old schedule would be continued!"
he said.
"So Mr. Foley gave us to understand," answered Mr. Baxter. "But it's
another man, a man named Keating, that's stirring this up."
"Keating!" Mr. Driscoll's lips pouted hugely, and his round eyes
snapped. For a man to whom he had taken a genuine liking to be stirring
up a fight against his interest was in the nature of a personal affront
to him.
"I think I know him," said Mr. Murphy. "He ain't such a much!"
"That shows you don't know him!" said Mr. Driscoll sharply. "Well, if
there is a strike, we'll at least have the satisfaction of fighting with
an honest man."
"That satisfaction, of course," admitted Mr. Baxter, in his soft,
rounded voice. "But what shall be our plan? It is certainly the part of
wisdom for us to decide upon our attitude, and our course, in advance."
"Fight 'em!" said Mr. Driscoll.
"What is the opinion of you other gentlemen?"
"They don't deserve an increase, so I'm against it," said Mr. Bobbs. Had
he spoken his thought his answer would have been: "It'll half ruin me if
we give the increase. Fact is, I've gone in pretty heavy in some real
estate lately. If my profits are cut down, I can't meet my payments."
"Same as Driscoll," said Mr. Murphy, a blowzed, hairy man, a Tammany
member of the Board of Aldermen. He swore at the union. "Why, they're
already gettin' twice what they're worth!"
Mr. Baxter raised his eyebrows the least trifle at Mr. Murphy's
profanity. "Mr. Isaacs."
"I don't see how we can pay more. And yet if we're tied up by a strike
for two or three months we'll lose more than the increase of wages would
come to."
Mr. Baxter answered the doubtful Mr. Isaacs in his smooth, even tones.
"You seem to forget, Mr. Isaacs, that if we grant this without a fight,
there'll be another demand next spring, and another the year after.
We're compelled to make a stand now if we would keep wages within
reasonable bounds."
"Yes, I suppose so," agreed Mr. Isaacs.
"Besides, if there is a strike it is not at all likely that it will last
any time," Mr. Baxter continued. "We should break the strike easily,
with a division in the union, as of course you see there is,--this Mr.
Keating on one side, Mr. Foley on the other. I've met Mr. Keating. I
dare say he's honest enough, as Mr. Driscoll says. But he is
inexperienced, and I am sure we can easily outgeneral him."
"Beat 'em easy, an' needn't spit on our hands to do it neither," said
Mr. Murphy. He started to swing one foot upon the cherry table, but
catching Mr. Baxter's eye he checked the leg in mid-career.
Straightway the five plunged into an excited discussion of the chance of
beating the strike, of plans for fighting it, and of preparation that
should be made in anticipation of it.
When they had gone Mr. Baxter sat down to his desk and began writing a
note. He had listened to the talk of the four, to him mere chatter, with
outward courtesy and inward chafing, not caring to mention to them the
plan upon which he had already decided. His first impulse had been to
fight the union, and fight it hard. He hated trade unionism for its
arrogation of powers that he regarded as the natural right of the
employer; it was his right, as the owner of a great business, and as the
possessor of a superior intelligence, to run his affairs as he saw
fit--to employ men on his own terms, work them such hours and under such
conditions as he should decide--terms, hours, and conditions, of course,
to be as good as he could afford. But his business training, his wholly
natural instinct for gain, and later his large family expenses, had
fixed upon him the profitable habit of seeking the line of least
resistance. And so, succeeding this first hot impulse, was a desire that
the strike be avoided--if that were possible.
His first thought had been of Foley. But the fewer his meetings with the
walking delegate of the iron workers, the more pleased was he. Then came
the second thought that it was better to deal directly with the
threatening cause--and so the letter he now wrote was to Tom Keating.
The letter was delivered Tuesday morning before Tom left home. He read
it in wonderment, for to him any letter was an event:
"Will you please call at my office as soon as you can find it
convenient. I have something to say that I think will interest you."
Guessing wildly as to what this something might be, Tom presented
himself at ten o'clock in the outer office of Baxter & Co. The uniform
respectfully told him that Mr. Baxter would not be in before twelve. At
twelve Tom was back. Yes, Mr. Baxter was in, said the uniform, and
hurried away with Tom's name. Again there was a wait before the boy came
back, and again a wait in a sheeny chair before Mr. Baxter looked up.
"Oh, Mr. Keating," he said. "I see you got my letter."
"Yes. This morning."
Mr. Baxter did not lose a second. "What I wanted to see you about is
this: I understand that some time ago you were inquiring here for a
position. It happens that I have a place just now that I'm desirous of
filling with an absolutely trustworthy man. Mr. Driscoll spoke very
highly to me of you, so I've sent for you."
This offer came to Tom as a surprise. His uppermost guess as to the
reason for his being summoned had been that Mr. Baxter, repenting of his
late non-participation, now wished to join in the fight against Foley.
Under other circumstances Tom would have accepted the position, said
nothing, and held the job as long as he could. But the fact that the
offer was coming to him freely and in good faith prompted him to say:
"You must know, Mr. Baxter, that if you give me a job Foley'll make
trouble for you."
"I have no fear of Mr. Foley's interference," Mr. Baxter answered him
quietly.
"You haven't!" Tom leaned forward in sudden admiration. "You're the
first boss I've struck yet that's not afraid of Foley! He's got 'em all
scared stiff. If you'd come out against him----"
Tom would have said more but Mr. Baxter's cold reserve, not a change of
feature, chilled his enthusiasm. He drew up in his chair. "What's the
job?"
"Foreman. The salary is forty a week."
Tom's heart beat exultantly--and he had a momentary triumph over Maggie.
"I'll take it," he said.
"Can you begin at once?"
"Yes."
"Very well. Then I'll want you to leave to-morrow."
Tom started. "Leave?"
"Yes. Didn't I mention that the job is in Chicago?"
Mr. Baxter watched Tom closely out of his steely gray eyes. He saw the
flush die out of Tom's face, saw Tom's clasped hands suddenly
tighten--and knew his answer before he spoke.
"I can't do it," he said with an effort. "I can't leave New York."
Mr. Baxter studied Tom's face an instant longer.... But it was too
honest.
He turned toward his desk with a gentle abruptness. "I am very sorry,
Mr. Keating. Good-day."
With Mr. Baxter there was small space between actions. He had already
decided upon his course in case this plan should fail. Tom was scarcely
out of his office before he was writing a note to Buck Foley.
Foley sauntered in the next morning, hands in overcoat pockets, a cigar
in one corner of his mouth. "What's this I hear about a strike?" Mr.
Baxter asked, as soon as the walking delegate was seated.
"Don't youse waste none o' the thinks in your brain-box on no strike,"
returned Foley. He had early discovered Mr. Baxter's dislike of uncouth
expressions.
"But there's a great deal of serious talk."
"There's always wind comin' out o' men's mouths."
Mr. Baxter showed not a trace of the irritation he felt.
"Is there going to be a strike?"
"Not if I know myself. And I think I do." He blew out a great cloud of
smoke.
"But one of your men--a Mr. Keating--is stirring one up."
"He thinks he is," Foley corrected. "But he's got another think comin'.
He's a fellow youse ought to know, Baxter. Nice an' cultivated;
God-fearin' an' otherwise harmless."
Mr. Baxter's face tightened. "I know, Mr. Foley, that this situation is
much more serious than you pretend," he said sharply.
Foley tilted back in his chair. "If youse seen a lion comin' at youse
with a yard or so of open mouth youse'd think things was gettin' a
little serious. But if youse knew the lion'd never make its last jump,
youse wouldn't go into the occupation o' throwin' fits, now would
youse?"
"What do you mean?"
"Nothin'. Only there'll be no last jump for Keating."
"How's that?"
"How? That's my business." He stood up, relit his cigar, striking the
match on the sole of his shoe. "Results is what youse's after. The how
belongs to me."
At the door he paused, half closed one eye, and slowly blew forth the
smoke of his cigar. "Now don't get brain-fag," he said.
Chapter XVI
BLOWS
It was about half past twelve when Tom left Mr. Baxter's office. As he
came purposeless into the street it occurred to him that he was but a
few blocks from the office of Mr. Driscoll, and in the same instant his
chance meeting with Ruth three weeks before as she came out to lunch
flashed across his memory. He turned his steps in the direction of Mr.
Driscoll's office, and on gaining the block it was in walked slowly back
and forth on the opposite side of the street, eagerly watching the
revolving door of the great building. At length she appeared. Tom
started quickly toward her. Another quarter revolution of the door and a
man was discharged at her side. The man was Mr. Berman; and they walked
off together, he turning upon her glances whose meaning Tom's quickened
instinct divined at once.
The sight of these two together, Mr. Berman's eyes upon her with an
unmistakable look, struck him through with jagged pain. He was as a man
whose sealed vision an oculist's knife has just released. Amid startled
anguish his eyes suddenly opened to things he, in his blindness, had
never guessed. He saw what she had come to mean to him. This was so
great that, at first, it well-nigh obscured all else. She filled
him,--her sympathy, her intelligence, her high womanliness. And she,
she that filled him, was ... only a great pain.
And then (he had mechanically followed them, and now stood watching the
door within which they had disappeared--the door through which he had
gone with her three weeks before) he saw, his pain writhing within him
the while, the double hopelessness of his love: she was educated,
cultured--she could care nothing for a mere workman; and even if she
could care, he was bound.
And then (he was now moving slowly through the Broadway crowd, scarcely
conscious of it) he saw how poor he was in his loveless married life.
Since his first liking for Maggie had run its so brief course, he had
lapsed by such slow degrees to his present relations with her that he
had been hardly more conscious of his life's lacking than if he had been
living with an unsympathetic sister. But now that a real love had
discovered itself to him, with the suddenness of lightning that rips
open the night, he saw, almost gaspingly, how glorious life with love
could be; and, by contrast, he saw how sordid and commonplace his own
life was; and he saw this life without love stretching away its flat
monotony, year after year.
And there were things he did not see, for he had not been made aware by
the unwritten laws prevailing in a more self-conscious social stratum.
And one of these things was, he did not see that perhaps in his social
ignorance he had done Ruth some great injury.
That night Maggie kept his dinner warm on the back of the kitchen
range, to no purpose; and that night Petersen waited vainly on the
tenement steps. It was after twelve when Tom came into the flat, his
face drawn, his heart chilled. He had seen his course vaguely almost
from the first moment of his vision's release; he had seen it clearer
and more clear as hour after hour of walking had passed; and he felt
himself strong enough to hold to that course.
The next morning at breakfast he was gentler with Maggie than he had
been in many a day; so that once, when she had gone into the kitchen to
refill her coffee cup, she looked in at him for a moment in a kind of
resentful surprise. Not being accustomed to peering inward upon the
workings of his soul, Tom himself understood this slight change in his
attitude no better than did his wife. He did not realize that the coming
of the knowledge of love, and the coming of sorrow, were together
beginning to soften and refine his nature.
The work Tom had marked out for himself permitted him little time to
brood over his new unhappiness. After breakfast he set out once more
upon his twofold purpose: to find a job, if one could be found; to talk
strike to as many members of the union as he could see. In seeking work
he was limited to such occupations as had not yet been unionized. He
walked along the docks, thinking to find something to do as a
longshoreman, but the work was heavy and irregular, the hours long, the
pay small; and he left the river front without asking for employment. He
looked at the men in the tunnel of the underground railway; but he could
not bring himself to ask employment among the low-waged Italians he saw
there. He did go into three big stores and make blind requests for
anything, but at none was there work for him.
As he went about Tom visited the jobs near which he passed, on which
members of his union were at work. One of these was a small residence
hotel just west of Fifth Avenue, whose walls were up, but which was as
yet unfinished on the inside. He climbed to the top in search of members
employed on the iron stairways and the elevator shafts, but did not find
a man. He reached the bottom of the stairway just in time to see three
men enter the doorway. One of the three he recognized as Jake Henderson,
and he knew the entertainment committee had him cornered. He grimly
changed his revolver from his vest pocket to his left coat pocket, and
filling his right coat pocket from a heap of sand beside him, quietly
awaited their coming.
The three paused a moment inside the door, evidently to accustom their
eyes to the half darkness, for all the windows were boarded up. At
length they sighted him, standing before the servants' staircase in the
further corner. They came cautiously across the great room, as yet
unpartitioned, Jake slightly in the lead. At ten paces away they came to
a halt.
"I guess we got youse good an' proper at last," said Jake gloatingly.
"It won't do youse no good to yell. We'll give youse all the more if
youse do. An' we can give it to youse, anyhow, before the men can get
down."
Tom did not answer. He had no mind to cry for help. He stood alertly
watching them, his hands in his coat pockets.
Jake laid off his hat and coat--there was leisure, and it enlarged his
pleasure to take his time--and moved forward in advance of his two
companions.
"Good-by," he said leering. He was on the point of lunging at his
victim, when Tom's right hand came out and a fistful of sand went
stinging full into his face. He gave a cry, but before he could so much
as make a move to brush away the sand Tom's fist caught him on the ear.
He dropped limply.
The two men sprang forward, to be met in the face by Tom's revolver.
"If you fellows want button-holes put into you, just move another step!"
he said.
They took another step, several of them--but backward steps. Tom kept
them covered for a minute, then moved toward the light, walking
backward, his eyes never leaving them. On gaining the door he slipped
the revolver into his vest pocket and stepped quickly into the blinding
street.
When Tom, entering the union hall that evening, passed Jake at his place
at the door, the latter scowled fiercely, but the presence of several of
Tom's friends, who had been acquainted with the afternoon's encounter,
pacified his fists.
"Why, what's the matter with your eyes, Jake?" asked Pig Iron Pete
sympathetically.
Jake consigned Pete to the usual place, and whispered in Tom's ear:
"Youse just wait! I'll git youse yet!"
That night Tom sat his first time in the president's chair. His
situation was painfully grotesque,--instead of being the result of the
chances of election, it might well have been an ironic jest of Foley:
there was Connelly, two tables away, at his right; Brown, the
vice-president, at the table next him; Snyder, the corresponding
secretary, at his left; Jake Henderson, sergeant-at-arms, at the
door;--every man of them an intimate friend of Foley. And it was not
long before Tom felt the farce-tragedy of his position. Shortly after he
rapped the meeting to order a man in the rear of the hall became
persistently obstreperous. After two censured outbreaks he rose
unsteadily amid the discussion upon a motion. "I objec'," he said.
"What's your objection?" Tom asked, repressing his wrath.
The man swore. "Ain't it 'nough I objec'!"
"If the member is out of order again he'll have to leave the hall." Tom
guessed this to be a scheme of Foley to annoy him.
"Put me out, you----" And the man offered some remarks upon Tom's
character.
Tom pounded the table with his gavel. "Sergeant-at-arms, put that man
out!"
Jake, who stood at the door whispering to a man, did not even turn
about.
"Sergeant-at-arms!"
Jake went on with his conversation.
"Sergeant-at-arms!" thundered Tom, springing to his feet.
Jake looked slowly around.
"Put that man out!" Tom ordered.
"Can't youse see I'm busy?" said Jake; and turned his broad back.
Several of Tom's friends sprang up, but all in the room waited to see
what he would do. For a moment he stood motionless, a statue of
controlled fury, and for that moment there was stillness in the hall.
Then he tossed the gavel upon the table and strode down the center
aisle. He seized the offending member, who was in an end seat, one hand
on his collar and one on his wrist. The man struck out, but a fierce
turn of his wrist brought from him a submissive cry of pain. Tom pushed
him, swearing, toward the door. No one offered interference, and his
ejection was easy, for he was small and half drunken.
Tom strode back to his table, brought the gavel down with a blow that
broke its handle and looked about with blazing eyes. Again the union
waited his action in suspense. His chest heaved; he swallowed mightily.
Then he asked steadily: "Are you ready for the question?"
This is but one sample of the many annoyances Tom suffered during the
meeting, and of the annoyances he was to suffer for many meetings to
come. A man less obstinately strong would have yielded his resignation
within an hour--to force which was half the purpose of the harassment;
and a man more violent would have broken into a fury of words, which,
answering the other half of the purpose, would have been to Foley's crew
what the tirade of a beggar is to teasing schoolboys.
When "new business" was reached Tom yielded the chair to Brown, the
vice-president, and rose to make the protest on which he had determined.
He had no great hope of winning the union to the action he desired; but
it had become a part of his nature never to give up and to try every
chance.
The union knew what was coming. There were cheers and hisses, but Tom
stood waiting minute after minute till both had died away. "Mr.
Chairman, I move we set aside last week's election of walking delegate,"
he began, and went on to make his charges against Foley. Cries of "Good
boy, Tom!" "Right there!" came from his friends, and various and
variously decorated synonyms for liar came from Foley's crowd; but Tom,
raising his voice to a shout, spoke without pause through the cries of
friends and foes.
When he ended half the crowd was on foot demanding the right to the
floor. Brown dutifully recognized Foley.
Foley did not speak from where he stood in the front row, but sauntered
angularly, hands in trousers pockets, to the platform and mounted it.
With a couple of kicks he sent a chair from its place against the wall
to the platform's edge, leisurely swung his right foot upon the chair's
seat, rested his right elbow upon his knee, and with cigar in the left
corner of his mouth, and his side to his audience, he began to speak.
"When I was a kid about as big as a rivet I used to play marbles for
keeps," he drawled, looking at the side wall. "When I won, I didn't make
no kick. When I lost, a deaf man could 'a' heard me a mile. I said the
other kid didn't play fair, an' I went cryin' around to make him give
'em up."
He paused to puff at his cigar. "Our honorable president, it seems he's
still a kid. Me an' him played a little game o' marbles last week. He
lost. An' now he's been givin' youse the earache. It's the same old
holler. He says I didn't play fair. He says I tried to stuff the box at
the start. But that was just a game on his part, as I said then, to
throw suspicion on me; an' anyhow, no ballots got in. He says I stuffed
it by a trick at the last. What's his proof? He says so.
Convincin'--hey? Gents, if youse want to stop his bawlin', give him back
his marbles. Turn me down, an' youse'll have about what's comin' to
youse--a cry baby sport."
He kicked his chair back against the wall and sat down; and amidst all
the talk that followed he did not once rise or turn his face direct to
the crowd. But when, finally, Brown said, "Everybody in favor of the
motion stand up," Foley rose to his full height with his back against
the wall, and his withheld gaze now struck upon the crowd with startling
effect. It was a phenomenon of his close-set eyes that each man in a
crowd thought them fixed upon himself. Upon every face that gaze seemed
bent--lean, sarcastic, menacing.
"Everybody that likes a cry baby sport, stand up!" he shouted.
Men sprang up all over the hall, and stood so till the count was made.
"Those opposed," Brown called out.
A number equally great rose noisily. A glance showed Tom the motion was
lost, since a two-thirds' vote was necessary to rescind an action. But
as his hope had been small, his disappointment was now not great.
Foley's supporters broke into cheers when they saw their leader was
safe, but Foley himself walked with up-tilted cigar back to his first
seat in an indifferent silence.
Chapter XVII
THE ENTERTAINMENT COMMITTEE
During the three weeks that followed Tom kept busy day and night,--by
day looking for work and talking to chance-met members, by night
stirring the members to appear on the first Wednesday of April to vote
for the demand for higher wages. He was much of the time dogged by part
of the entertainment committee, but he had become watchful, and the
knowledge that he was armed made them wary, so day after day passed
without another conflict. At first his committee's delay in the
discharge of their duty stirred Foley's wrath. "Youse're as slow as fat
angels!" he informed them in disgust. Later the delay stirred his
anxiety, and he raised his offer from twenty-five dollars a man to one
hundred.
Every night Tom was met at his street door by Petersen and left there by
him a few hours later. His frequent appearance with Tom brought Petersen
into some prominence; and he was promptly nicknamed "Babe" by a
facetious member who had been struck by his size, and "Rosie" by a man
who saw only his awkwardness. Both names stuck. His relation to Tom had
a more unpleasant result: it made the story of his discomfiture by a man
of half his size, while on the fire-house job, decidedly worth the
telling; and so it rapidly came into general circulation, and the sight
of Petersen was the signal for jeers, even among Tom's own friends.
Petersen flushed at the taunts, but bore them dumbly and kept his arms
at his side.
All this while Ruth was much in Tom's mind. Had it not been that he kept
himself busy he could have done little else but think of her. As it was,
he lay awake long hours at night, very quietly that he might not rouse
his wife, in wide-eyed dreams of her; and several times by day he caught
himself out of thoughts of her to find himself in a street far out of
his way. And once, in the evening, he had puzzled the faithful Petersen
by walking back and forth through an uptown block and gazing at a house
in which no member of the Iron Workers' Union could possibly be living.
But he held firmly to the course he had recognized as his only course.
For three weeks he maintained his determination, against desire scarcely
less strong than his strength, till the evening of the first Tuesday of
April, the night before the vote upon the strike. Then, either he was
weaker, or desire was stronger. He was overwhelmed. His resolve to keep
away from her, his intention to spend this last evening in work, were
nothing before his wish to see her again. He was fairly swept up to her
door, not heeding Petersen, and not giving a thought to Jake, whom he
glimpsed once in the street car behind when a brief blockade let it gain
the tail of his own.
"You needn't wait for me," he said mechanically to Petersen as he rang
the bell. Again the maid brought back word for him to come up. This
time Ruth was not waiting him at the head of the stairs. He stood before
her door a moment, with burning brain, striving for mastery over
himself, before he could knock. She called to him to enter, and he found
her leaning against her little case of books, unusually pale, but with
eyes brighter than he had ever seen them.
She took a step toward him, and held out her hand. "I'm so glad you
called, Mr. Keating."
Tom, for his part, could make no answer; his throat had suddenly gone
cracking dry. He took her hand; his grip was as loose as an unconscious
man's.
As was the first minute, so were the two hours that followed. In answer
to her questions he told her of his new plans, without a vestige of
enthusiasm; and presently, to save the situation, she began to talk
volubly about nothing at all. They were hours of mutual constraint. Tom
hardly had knowledge of what he said, and he hardly heard her words. His
very nearness to her made more ruthlessly clear the wideness that lay
between them. He felt with its first keenness the utter hopelessness of
his love. Every moment that he sat with his hot eyes upon her he
realized that he should forthwith go. But still he sat on in a silence
of blissful agony.
At length there came an interruption--a knock at the door. Ruth answered
it, and when she turned about she held out an envelope to Tom. "A letter
for you," she said, with a faint show of surprise. "A messenger brought
it."
Tom tore it open, looking first to the signature. It was from Pete. "I
have got a bunch of the fellows in the hall over the saloon at--Third
Avenue," read the awkward scramble of words. "On the third floor. Can't
you come in and help me with the spieling?"
At another time Tom might have wondered at this note: how Pete had come
to be in a hall with a crowd of men, how Pete had learned where he was.
But now the note did not raise a doubt in his fevered brain.
He folded the note, and put it into a pocket. "I've got some work to do
yet to-night," he explained, and he took up his hat. It was an unusually
warm evening for the first of April and he had worn no overcoat.
"You must come again soon," she said a few moments later, as he was
leaving. Tom had nothing to say; he could not tell her the truth--that
he expected never to see her again. And so he left her, awkwardly,
without parting word of any kind. At the foot of the stairs he paused
and looked up at her door, at the head of the first flight, and he
looked for a long, long space before he stepped forth into the night.
A little round man stood bareheaded on the stoop; Petersen was pacing
slowly to and fro on the sidewalk. The little man seized Tom by the arm.
"Won't you send a policeman, please," he asked excitedly, in an
inconsequential voice, such as belongs properly to the husband of a
boarding-house mistress.
"What for?"
"That man there has been walking just so, back and forth, for the last
two hours. From the way he keeps looking up at the house it is certain
he is contemplating some nefarious act of burglary."
"I'll do better than send a cop," said Tom. "I'll take him away myself."
He went down the steps, took Petersen's arm and started off with him.
"Thank you exceedingly, sir!" called out the little man.
They took an Eighty-sixth Street cross-town car to Third Avenue, and
after five minutes' riding southward Tom, keeping watch from the end of
the car, spied a number near to the one for which he was searching. They
got out and easily found the place designated in Pete's note. It was
that great rarity, a saloon in the middle of a New York block. The
windows of the second floor were dark; a soft glow came through those of
the floor above.
With the rattle of the elevated trains in their ears Tom and Petersen
entered the hallway which ran alongside the saloon, and mounted two
flights of stairs so dark that, at the top of the second, Tom had to
grope for the door. This discovered, he opened it and found himself at
the rear of the hall. This was a barren, dingy room, perhaps forty feet
long, with double curtains of some figured cloth at the three front
windows. Four men sat at the front end of the room playing cards; there
were glasses and beer bottles on the table, and the men were smoking.
All this Tom saw within the time of the snapping of an instantaneous
shutter; and he recognized, with the same swiftness, that he had been
trapped. But before he could shift a foot to retreat, a terrific shove
from behind the door sent him staggering against the side wall. The door
was slammed shut by the same force, grazing Petersen as he sprang in.
The bolt of the lock clicked into place.
"We've got youse this time!" Tom heard a harsh voice cry out, and on the
other side of Petersen, who stood on guard with clenched fists, he saw
Jake Henderson, a heavy stick in his right hand.
In the same instant the men at the table had sprung to their feet. "Why,
if it ain't Rosie!" cried Kaffir Bill, advancing at the head of the
quartette.
"Say, fellows, tie my two hands behind me, so's me an' Rosie can have an
even fight," requested Arkansas Number Two.
"If youse want Rosie to fight, youse've got to tie his feet together,"
said Smoky; and this happy reference to the time Petersen ran away
brought a laugh from the three others.
Tom, recovering from his momentary dizziness, drew his revolver and
levelled it at the four. "The first man that moves gets the first
bullet."
The men suddenly checked their steps.
For an instant the seven made a tableau. Then Petersen sprang in at
Jake. A blow from the club on his left shoulder stopped him. Again he
sprang in, this time breaking through Jake's guard, but only to grasp
Jake's left arm with his half-numbed left hand. This gave Jake his
chance. His right hand swung backward with the club, his eyes on Tom.
"Look out!" cried Petersen.
Tom, guessing danger in the warning, pulled the trigger. With a cry
Hickey dropped to the floor, a bullet in his leg. In the very flash of
the revolver the whizzing club sent the weapon flying from Tom's hand.
Tom made a rush after the pistol, and Jake, breaking from Petersen's
grip, made a plunge on the same errand. Both outstretched hands closed
upon it, and the two men went sprawling to the floor in a struggle for
its possession.
Petersen faced quickly about upon the men whom Tom's revolver had made
hesitant. Hickey lay groaning and swearing, a little pool of blood
beginning to form on the bare floor. The other three, in their lust for
their reward now so nearly won, gave Hickey hardly a glance, but
advanced upon Petersen with the confidence that comes of being three to
one and of knowing that one to be a coward. Petersen slipped off his
coat, threw it together with his derby hat upon the floor near the wall,
and with swelling nostrils quietly awaited their onslaught.
Arkansas stepped forth from his fellows. "Where'll I hit you first,
Rosie? Glad to give you your pref'rence." And he spat into the V of
Petersen's vest.
That was the last conscious moment of Arkansas for an hour. Petersen
took a step forward, his long arm shot out, and Arkansas went to the
floor all a-huddle.
Tom's eyes, glancing an instant from his own adversary, saw the "Swedish
Terror" of the photograph: left foot advanced, fists on guard, body
low-crouched. "Come on!" Petersen said, with a joyous snarl, to the two
men who had fallen back a step. "Come on. I vant you bod!"
Kaffir Bill looked hesitantly upon his companion. "It was only a lucky
lick, Smoky; Arkansas wasn't lookin'," he explained doubtfully.
"Yes," said the other.
"Sure. It couldn't 'a' been nothin' else. Why, Kid Morgan done him up."
"Come on then!" cried Smoky.
Together they made a rush, Bill a step in advance. Petersen's right
landed over Bill's heart. Bill went tottering backward and to the floor.
Smoky shot in and clinched; but after Petersen's fists, like alternating
hammers, had played a terrific tattoo against his two cheeks, he loosed
his hold and staggered away with his arms about his ears. Bill rose
dizzily to his feet, and the pair leaned against the further wall,
whispering and watching Petersen with glowering irresolution.
"Come on, bod! Come on vid you!" Petersen shouted, his fists moving back
and forth in invitation, his indrawn breath snoring exultantly.
Jake let out an oath. "Get into him!" he said.
"Yah! Come on vid you!"
They conferred a moment longer, and then crept forward warily. Hickey
stopped his groaning and rose to his elbows to watch the second round.
At five feet away the two paused. Then suddenly Smoky made a feint,
keeping out of reach of the Swede's swinging return, and under cover of
this Kaffir Bill ducked and lunged at Petersen's legs.
Petersen went floundering to the floor, and Smoky hurled himself upon
his chest. The three became a whirling, tumbling tangle,--arms striking
out, legs kicking,--Petersen now in under, now half free, striking and
hugging with long-untasted joy, breathing fierce grunts and strange
ejaculations. The two had thought, once off his feet, the Swede would be
an easy conquest. But Petersen had been a mighty rough-and-tumble
scrapper before he had gone into the prize ring, and for a few
tumultuous moments the astounded twain had all they could do to hold
their own.
"Slug him, can't youse!" gasped Bill, who was looking after Petersen's
lower half, to Smoky, who was looking after the upper.
Smoky likewise saw that only a blow in the right place could give them
victory over this heaving force. So far it had taken his best to hold
these long arms. But he now loosed his hug to get in the victorious
blow. Before he could strike, Petersen's fist jammed him in the face.
"Ya-a-h!" grunted the Swede.
Smoky fell instantly to his old position. "Hit him yourself!" he growled
from Petersen's shirt front.
Bill, not having seen what had happened to Smoky, released a leg so that
he might put his fist into Petersen's stomach. The leg kicked his knee.
Bill, with a shriek, frantically re-embraced the leg.
The two now saw they could do no more than merely hold Petersen, and so
the struggle settled to a stubborn equilibrium.
In the meantime the strife between Tom and Jake had been like that of
two bulls which stand braced, with locked horns. Jake's right hand had
gained possession of the revolver, having at first had the better hold
on it; Tom had a fierce grip on his forearm. The whole effort of one was
to put the weapon into use; the whole effort of the other was to prevent
its use, and perhaps to seize it for himself. Neither dared strike lest
the act give the other his chance.
When he saw nothing was coming of the struggle between Bill and Smoky
and Petersen, a glimpse of the wounded man, raised on his elbows, gave
Jake an idea. With a jerk of his wrist he managed to toss the revolver a
couple of feet away, beyond his own and Tom's reach.
"Hickey!" he called out. "Get it!"
The wounded man moved toward them, half crawling, half dragging himself.
A vengeful look came into his eyes. Tom needed no one to tell him what
would happen when the man he had shot laid hand upon his weapon. Hickey
drew nearer and nearer, his bloody trouser leg leaving a moist trail on
the bare floor. His head reached their feet--passed them--his right hand
stretched out for the revolver. Tom saw his only chance. With a supreme
effort he turned Jake, who in watching Hickey was momentarily off his
guard, upon his back; and with all the strength of his leg he drove his
foot into the crawling man's stomach. The man collapsed with a groaning
outrush of breath.
Tom saw that the deadlock was likely to be ended, and the victory won,
by the side gaining possession of the revolver; and he saw the danger
to Petersen and himself that lay in the possibility of either of the
unconscious men regaining his senses. Petersen's slow mind worked
rapidly enough in a fight; he, too, saw the danger Tom had seen.
Anything to be done must be done at once.
But a nearer danger presented itself. Jake strained his neck till his
eyes were on the trio. "Can't one o' youse hold him?" he gasped.
"T'other git the gun."
Smoky was on his back crosswise beneath Petersen's chest, his arms tight
about Petersen's neck, clamping Petersen's hot cheek against his own.
Kaffir Bill lay upon the Swede's legs, arms locked about them just below
the hips. Bill was the freer to obey the order of the chief, and he
began to slip his arms, still embracing the legs, slowly downward.
Certainly anything to be done must be done at once, for Petersen, lost
to passion though he was, knew that in another moment Bill's arms would
have slipped to his feet, and there would be a spring to be clear of his
kick and a rush for the revolver. With a fierce grunt, he quickly placed
his broad hands on either side of Smoky's chest and slowly strained
upward. Bill, not knowing what this new move meant, immediately
regripped Petersen's thighs. Slowly Petersen rose, lifting Smoky's
stiffened body after him, cheek still tight against cheek, till his
elbows locked. Then his hips gradually raised till part of his weight
was on his knees. His back arched upward, and his whole body stiffened
till it was like a bar of iron.
Suddenly his arms relaxed, and he drove downward, his weight and
strength concentrated against Smoky's cheek. Smoky's head battered the
floor. His arms loosened; a quick blow on the jaw made them fall limp.
Petersen whirled madly over to dispose of Bill, but in the same tick of
the watch Bill sprang away, and to his feet, and made a dash for the
revolver. Instantly Petersen was up and but two paces behind him. Bill's
lunging hand fell upon the weapon, Petersen's fist fell upon Bill, and
the revolver was Petersen's.
When Jake saw Petersen come up with the pistol he took his arms from
about Tom. "Youse've got me done. I give in," he growled.
The two were rising when a wild voice sounded out hoarsely: "Come on!
Come on now vid you!"
Tom, on his feet, turned toward Petersen. The Swede, left hand gripping
the revolver about its barrel, stood in challenging attitude, his eyes
blazing, saliva trickling from one corner of his mouth. "Yah! Come on!"
Tom recognized what he was seeing,--that wild Swedish rage that knows
neither when it has beat nor when it is beaten; in this case all the
less controllable from its long restraint.
Pete, Smoky, and Bill were now all on their feet and leaning against the
wall. Petersen strode glaring before them, shaking his great fists
madly. "Come on now!"
"Petersen!" Tom called.
"Come on vid you! I vant all dree!" The harsh voice rose into a shriek.
The three did not move. "For God's sake, Petersen! The fight's over!"
Tom cried.
"Afraid! Yah! Afraid! I lick you all dree!"
With an animal-like roar he rushed at the three men. Smoky and Bill
ducked and dashed away, but Jake stood his ground and put up his fists.
A blow and he went to the floor. Petersen flung about to make for Smoky
and Bill. Tom seized his arm.
"God, man! Stop! They've give in!"
"Look out!" A shove sent Tom staggering, and Petersen was away. "I lick
'em all, by God!" he roared.
With annihilating intent he bore down upon Bill and Smoky, who stood
back to wall on fearful defense. An inspiration flashed upon Tom. "Your
wife, Petersen! Your wife!" he cried.
Petersen's raging strides checked. He looked slowly about. "Vot?"
"Your wife!"
"Anna!... Anna!" Dazed, breathing heavily, he stared at Tom. Something
like a convulsion went through him. His face faded to dullness, then to
contrition.
"Better let me have the gun," Tom said quietly, after a minute had
passed.
Petersen handed it over.
"Now get your hat and coat, and we'll go."
Without glancing at the three, who were staring at him in utter
bewilderment, Petersen dully put on his hat and coat. A moment later he
and Tom were backing toward the door. But before they reached it Tom's
steady gaze became conscious of the curtains at the further end of the
room. His square face tightened grimly with sudden purpose.
"Take down those curtains, Petersen," he said.
Petersen removed the six curtains, dusty and stained with tobacco juice,
from their places and brought them to Tom.
"Tear five of 'em into two strips."
The three men, and Hickey from the floor, looked on curiously while
Petersen obeyed.
"Tie Jake up first; hands behind his back," was Tom's next order.
"I'll see youse in hell first!" Jake backed away from Petersen and
raised his fists.
"If you make any trouble, I'll give you a quick chance to look around
there a bit!"
Jake gazed a moment at the revolver and the gleaming eye behind it, and
his fists dropped. Petersen stepped behind him and went to work,
twisting the strip of muslin into a rope as he wound it about Jake's
wrists. The job was securely done in a minute, for Petersen had once
followed the sea.
"Now his feet," said Tom; and to Jake: "It'll be easier for you if you
lay down."
Jake hesitated, then with an oath dropped to his knees and tumbled
awkwardly on his side. In another minute Jake's feet were fastened; and
at the end of ten minutes the other four men had been bound, even the
wounded Hickey.
Tom put his revolver in his outside coat pocket, and unlocked the door.
"Good-night," he said; and he and Petersen stepped out. He locked the
door and put the key in his pocket.
"Police?" asked Petersen, when they had gained the street.
"No. That's what they ought to have. But when you've been a union man
longer you'll know we boys don't ask the police to mix in our affairs.
When there's a strike, they're always turned against us by the bosses.
So we leave 'em alone."
They were but half a dozen squares from Mulligan's saloon. Tom set out
in its direction, and five minutes later, with Petersen behind him, he
walked into the doorway of the room beyond the bar. As he had expected,
there sat Foley, and with him were three of his men. Foley started, and
half rose from his chair, but settled back again. His discomposure
confirmed what Tom had already guessed--that Foley's was the brain
behind the evening's stratagem, and that he was awaiting his deputies'
report.
"I guess you were expecting somebody else," Tom said grimly from the
doorway, one hand on the revolver in his coat pocket. "I just dropped in
to tell you Jake Henderson and his bunch are waiting for you up over
Murphy's saloon."
Foley was dazed, as he could not help but be, thus learning his last
plan had failed. "Youse saw 'em?"
"I did."
He looked Tom over. And then his eyes took in the figure of Petersen
just within the doorway. He grasped instinctively at the chance to raise
a laugh. "Was Rosie there?" he queried.
The three dutifully guffawed.
"Yes," said Tom. "Rosie was there."
Foley took a bracing hold of himself, and toyed with the stem of his
beer glass. "Much obliged for comin' in to tell me," he said, with a
show of carelessness. "But I guess the boys ain't in no hurry."
"No, I guess not," Tom agreed. "They said they'd wait till you came."
With that he tossed the key upon the table, turned and strode forth from
the saloon. Outside he thrust a gripping arm through Petersen's, which
straightway took on an embarrassed limpness, and walked away.
Chapter XVIII
THE STOLEN STRIKE
Tom mounted the stairs of Potomac Hall early the next evening. During
the day he had told a few friends the story of the encounter of the
night before. The story had spread in versions more or less vague and
distorted, and now on his entry of the hall he was beset by a crowd who
demanded a true and detailed account of the affair. This he gave.
"Oh, come now, Tom! This's hot air you're handin' us out about Babe!"
expostulated one of the men.
"It's the truth."
"Get out! I saw Kid Morgan chase him a block. He can't fight."
"You think not? Well, there's one way you can convince yourself."
"How's that?"
"Try it with him for about a minute," answered Tom.
There was a laugh, in which the man joined. "I tell you what, boys," he
said, after it had subsided. "I hit Babe on the back o' the neck with a
glove the day Kid chased him. If what Tom says is straight, I'm goin' to
beg Babe's pardon in open meetin'."
"Me, too," chimed in another.
"It's so," said Tom, thinking with a smile of what was in store for
Petersen.
For some reason, perhaps one having to do with their personal pride,
Jake and his fellows did not appear that night, though several hundred
men waited their coming with impatient greetings. But just before Tom
opened the session Petersen entered the hall and slipped into an obscure
seat near the door.
He was immediately recognized. "Petersen!" someone announced.
Straightway men arose all over the hall and turned about to face him.
"Petersen!" "Petersen!" "What's the matter with Petersen!" the cries
went up, and there was a great clapping of hands.
Petersen sprang to his feet in wild consternation. Yes, they were
looking at him. Yes, that was his name. He didn't know what it meant----
But the next instant he had bolted out of the hall.
When the shouting had died away Tom called the union to order. He was
filled with an exultant sense of certain triumph; he had kept an
estimating eye on the members as they had filed in; an easy majority of
the men were with him, and as their decision would be by open vote there
would be no chance for Foley to stuff a ballot-box.
Pete, the instructed spokesman for Tom's party, was the first man on his
feet. "Mr. President," he said, "I move we drop the reg'lar order o'
business an' proceed at once to new business."
Tom put the motion to rising vote. His confidence grew as he looked
about the hall, for the rising vote on the motion showed how strong his
majority really was.
"Motion carried!" he shouted, and brought down his gavel.
The next instant a dozen men were on their feet waving their right hands
and crying, "Mr. Chairman." One was Pete, ten were good-intentioned but
uninformed friends, and one was Foley. Tom's eyes fastened upon Foley,
and his mind worked quickly.
"Mr. Foley," he said.
A murmur of surprise ran among Tom's friends. But he had his reason for
this slight deviation from his set plan. He knew that Foley was opposed
to a strike; if he let Foley go on record against it in a public speech,
then his coming victory over the walking delegate would be all the more
decisive.
Foley looked slowly about upon the men, and for a moment did not speak.
Then he said suddenly, in a conversational tone: "Boys, how much youse
gettin'?"
"Three seventy-five," several voices answered.
"How long youse been gettin' it?"
"Two years."
"Yes," he said, his voice rising and ringing with intensity. "Two years
youse've been workin' for three seventy-five. The bosses' profits have
been growin' bigger an' bigger. But not a cent's raise have youse had.
Not a cent, boys! Now here's what I say."
He paused, and thrust out his right arm impressively. Tom regarded him
in sickened, half-comprehending amazement.
"Here's what I say, boys! I say it's time we had more money. I say we
ought to make the blood-suckin' bosses give up a part o' what's comin'
to us. That's what I say!" And he swung his doubled fist before his face
in a great semi-circle.
He turned to Tom, with a leer in his eyes that was for Tom alone. "Mr.
President, I move we demand a ten per cent. increase o' wages, an' if
the bosses won't give it, strike for it!"
Tom sank stupefied back in his chair. Foley's own men were bewildered
utterly. A dead silence of a minute or more reigned in the hall, while
all but the walking delegate strove to recover their bearing.
It was Connelly who broke the general trance. Connelly did not
understand, but there was Foley's standing order, "Watch me, an' do the
same." "I second the motion," he said.
A little later Foley's strike measure was carried without a single
dissenting vote. Foley, Connelly, Brown, Pete, and Tom, with Foley as
chairman, were elected the committee to negotiate with the employers for
higher wages, and, if there should be a strike, to manage it.
The adoption of the strike measure meant to Foley that the income
derived from Mr. Baxter, and two or three others with whom he maintained
somewhat similar relations, was to be cut off. But before he reached
home that night he had discovered a compensation for this loss, and he
smiled with grim satisfaction. The next morning he presented himself in
the office of Mr. Baxter, and this same grim smile was on his face.
"Hello, Baxter! How youse stackin' up this mornin'?" And he clapped a
hand on Mr. Baxter's artistically padded shoulder.
The contractor started at this familiarity, and a slight frown showed
itself on his brow. "Very well," he said shortly.
"Really, now. Why, youse look like youse slept alongside a bad dream."
Foley drew forth his cigar-case and held it out. He knew Mr. Baxter did
not smoke cigars and hated their smell.
"No, thank you."
The walking delegate put one in his mouth and scratched a match under
the edge of the cherry table. "I don't s'pose youse know there was
doin's at the union last night?"
"I understand the union decided to strike."
"Wonderful, ain't it, how quick news travels?"
Mr. Baxter disregarded Foley's look of mock surprise. "You seem to have
failed utterly to keep your promise that there would be no strike," he
said coldly.
"It was Keating stirred it up," Foley returned, calmly biting a bit off
his cigar and blowing it out upon the deep red rug.
"You also failed to stop Mr. Keating," Mr. Baxter pursued.
"Mr. Baxter, even the best of us makes our mistakes. I bet even youse
ain't cheated every man youse've counted on cheatin'."
Mr. Baxter gave another little start, as when Foley had slapped his
shoulder. "Furthermore, I understand you, yourself, made the motion to
strike."
"The way youse talk sometimes, Baxter, makes me think youse must 'a'
been born about minute before last," Foley returned blandly. "As an
amachure diplomat, youse've got Mayor Low skinned to death. Sure I made
the motion. An' why did I make the motion? If I hadn't 'a' made it, but
had opposed it, where'd I 'a' been? About a thousand miles outside the
outskirts o' nowhere,--nobody in the union, an' consequently worth about
as much to youse as a hair in a bowl o' soup. I stood to lose both. I
still got the union."
"What do you propose that we do?" Mr. Baxter held himself in, for the
reason that he supposed the old relation would merely give place to a
new.
"Well, there's goin' to be strike. The union'll make a demand, an' I
rather guess youse'll not give up without a fight."
"We shall certainly fight," Mr. Baxter assured him.
"Well," he drawled, "since I've got to lead the union in a strike an'
youse're goin' to fight the strike, it seems like everything'd have to
be off between us, don't it?"
Mr. Baxter did not reply at once, and then did not answer the question.
"What are you going to do?"
"To tell youse, that is just what I came here for." In a flash Foley's
manner changed from the playful to the vindictive, and he leaned slowly
forward in his chair. "I'm goin' to fight youse, Baxter, an' fight youse
like hell!" he said, between barely parted teeth. And his gray eyes,
suddenly hard, gazed maliciously into Mr. Baxter's face.
"I'm goin' to fight like hell!" he went on. "For two years I've been
standin' your damned manicured manners. Youse've acted like I wasn't fit
to touch. Why d'youse s'pose I've stood it? Because it was money to me.
Now that there's no money in it, d'youse s'pose I'm goin' to stand it
any longer? Not much, by God! And d'youse think I've forgotten the
past--your high-nosed, aristocratic ways? Well, youse'll remember 'em
too! My chance's come, an' I'm goin' to fight youse like hell!"
At the last Foley's clenched fist was under Mr. Baxter's nose. The
contractor did not stir the breadth of a hair. "Mr. Foley," he said in
his cold, even voice, "I think you know the shortest way out of this
office."
"I do," said Foley. "An' it's a damned sight too long!"
He gave Mr. Baxter a long look, full of defiant hate, contemptuously
flipped his half-smoked cigar on Mr. Baxter's spotless desk, and strode
out.
Chapter XIX
FOLEY TASTES REVENGE
Foley's threat that, under cover of the strike, he was going to make Mr.
Baxter suffer, was anything save empty bluster. But twenty years of
fighting had made him something of a connoisseur of vengeance. He knew,
for instance, that a moment usually presented itself when revenge was
most effective and when it tasted sweetest. So he now waited for time to
bring him that moment; and he waited all the more patiently because a
month must elapse ere the beginning of the strike would afford him his
chance.
The month passed dully. Buck had spoken from certain knowledge when he
had remarked to Mr. Baxter that the contractors would not yield without
a fight. During April there were no less than half a dozen meetings
between the union's committee and the Executive Committee of the
employers' association in a formal attempt at peaceful settlement. The
public attitude of Foley and Baxter toward each other for the past two
years had been openly hostile. That attitude was not changed, but it was
now sincere. In these meetings the unionists presented their case; the
employers gave their side; every point, pro and con, was gone over again
and again. On the thirtieth of April the situation was just as it had
been on the first: "We're goin' to get all we're askin' for," said
Foley; "We can concede nothing," said Mr. Baxter. On the first of May
not a man was at work on an iron job in New York City.
During these four weeks Foley regained popularity with an astounding
rapidity. He was again the Foley of four or five years ago, the Foley
that had won the enthusiastic admiration of the union, fierce-tongued in
his denunciation of the employers at union meetings, grimly impudent to
members of the employers' Executive Committee and matching their every
argument,--at all times witty, resourceful, terribly determined, fairly
hurling into others a confidence in himself. He was feeling with almost
its first freshness the joy of being in, and master of, a great fight.
Men that for years had spoken of him only in hate, now cheered him. And
even Tom himself had to yield to this new Foley a reluctant admiration,
he was so tireless, so aggressive, so equal to the occasion.
Tom had become, by the first of May, a figure of no importance. True, he
was a member of the strike committee, but Foley gave him no chance to
speak; and, anyhow, the walking delegate said what there was to be said
so pointedly, albeit with a virulence that antagonized the employers all
the more, that there was no reason for his saying aught. And as for his
position as president, that had become pathetically ludicrous. As though
in opposite pans of a balance, the higher Foley went in the union's
estimation, the lower went he. Even his own friends, while not
abandoning him, fell in behind Foley. He was that pitiable anomaly, a
leader without a following and without a cause. Foley had stolen both.
He tried to console himself with the knowledge that the walking delegate
was managing the strike for the union's good; but only the millionth man
has so little personal ambition that he is content to see the work he
would do being well done by another.... And yet, though fallen, he hung
obstinately on and waited--blindly.
Tom was now in little danger from the entertainment committee, for
Foley's disquiet over his influence had been dissipated by his rapid
decline. And after the first of May Tom gave Foley even less concern,
for he had finally secured work in the shipping department of a
wholesale grocer, so could no longer show himself by day among the union
men.
During April the contractors had prepared for the coming fight by
locating non-union ironworkers, and during the first part of May they
rushed these into the city and set them to work, guarded by Pinkerton
detectives, upon the most pressing jobs. The union, in its turn,
picketed every building on which there was an attempt to continue work,
and against the scabs the pickets waged a more or less pacific warfare.
Foley was of himself as much as all the pickets. He talked to the
non-union men as they came up to their work, as they left their work, as
they rode away on street cars, as they sat in saloons. Some he reached
by his preachment of the principles of trade unionism. And some he
reached by such brief speech as this: "This strike'll be settled soon.
Our men'll all go back to work. What'll happen to youse about then? The
bosses'll kick youse out. If youse're wise youse'll join the union and
help us in the strike." This argument was made more effective by the
temporary lifting of the initiation fee of twenty-five dollars, by which
act scabs were made union men without price. There was also a third
method, which Foley called "transmittin' unionism to the brain by the
fist," and he reached many this way, for his fist was heavy and had a
strong arm behind it.
The contractors, in order to retain the non-union men, raised their
wages to fifty cents a day more than the union demanded, but even then
they were able to hold only enough workers to keep a few jobs going in
half-hearted fashion. There were many accidents and delays on these
buildings, for the workers were boilermakers, and men who but half knew
the trade, and men who did not know the trade at all. As Pete remarked,
after watching, from a neighboring roof, the gang finishing up the work
on the St. Etienne Hotel, "The shadder of an ironworker would do more'n
three o' them snakes." The contractors themselves realized perfectly
what poor work they were getting for so extravagant a price, and would
have discharged their non-union gangs had this not been a tacit
admission of partial defeat.
From the first of May there of course had been several hot-heads who
favored violent handling of the scabs. Tom opposed these with the
remnant of his influence, for he knew the sympathy of the public has its
part in the settlement of strikes, and public sympathy goes not to the
side guilty of outrage. The most rabid of all these advocates of
violence was Johnson, who, after being summoned to Mr. Baxter's office,
began diligently to preach this substance: "If we put a dozen or two o'
them snakes out o' business, an' fix a job or two, the bosses'll come
right to time."
"It strikes me, Johnson, that you change your ideas about as often as
you ought to change your shirt," Pete remarked one day, after listening
to Johnson's inflammatory words. "Not long ago you were all against a
strike."
For a moment Johnson was disconcerted. Then he said: "But since there is
a strike I'm for measures that'll settle it quick. What you got against
smashin' a few scabs?"
"Oh, it's always right to smash a scab," Pete agreed. "But you ought to
know that just now there's nothin' the bosses'd rather have us do.
They'd pay good money to get us to give the hospitals a chance to
practice up on a few snakes."
Johnson looked at Pete searchingly, fearing that Pete suspected. But
Pete guessed nothing, and Johnson went about his duty.
There were a number of encounters between the strikers and the
strike-breakers, and several of these set-tos had an oral repetition in
the police courts; but nothing occurred so serious as to estrange public
sympathy till the explosion in the Avon, a small apartment house Mr.
Baxter was erecting as a private investment. And with this neither
Johnson nor the rank and file, on whose excitable feelings he tried to
play, had anything to do.
Foley's patience mastered his desire for vengeance easily enough during
April, but when May had reached its middle without offering the chance
he wanted, his patience weakened and desire demanded its rights. At an
utterly futile meeting between the committees of the union and the
employers, toward the end of the month, arranged for by the Civic
Federation, the desire for vengeance suddenly became the master. This
was the first meeting since the strike began, and was the first time
Foley had seen Mr. Baxter since then. The contractor did not once look
at Foley, and did not once address speech to him; he sat with his back
to the walking delegate, and put all his remarks to Brown, the least
important member of the strikers' committee. Foley gave as good as he
received, for he selected Isaacs, who was nothing more than a fifth man,
and addressed him as head of the employers' committee; and rather
better, for he made Mr. Baxter the object of a condescending affability
that must have been as grateful as salt to raw and living flesh.
But Foley was not appeased. When he and Connelly were clear of the
meeting he swore fiercely. "He won't be so cool to-morrow!" he said, and
swore again. "An' the same trick'll help bring 'em all to time," he
added.
Foley had already had vengeful eyes upon the Avon, which stood on a
corner with a vacant lot on one side and an open space between its rear
and the next building. Jake had carefully reconnoitered its premises,
with the discovery that one of the two Pinkerton guards was an
acquaintance belonging to the days when he himself had been in the
service of the Pinkerton agency. That night Jake sauntered by the Avon,
chatted awhile with the two guards, and suggested a visit to a nearby
saloon. As soon as the three were safely around the corner Kaffir Bill
and Arkansas Number Two slipped into the doorway of the Avon, leaving
Smoky on watch without. Bill and Arkansas had their trouble: to find
their way about in the darkness, to light the fuse--and then they had to
cut off an unignitable portion of the fuse; and then in their nervous
eagerness to get away their legs met a barrel of cement and they went
sprawling behind a partition. Several moments passed ere they found the
doorway, the while they could hear the sputtering of the shortened fuse,
and during which they heard Smoky cry out, "Come on!" When they did come
into the street it was to see the two Pinkertons not twenty paces away.
Before their haste could take them to the opposite sidewalk the pavement
jumped under their feet, and the building at their backs roared heavily.
The guards, guessing the whole trick, began shooting at the two. A
policeman appeared from around the corner with drawn pistol--and that
night Jake, Bill, and Arkansas slept in a cell.
The next morning, after getting on the car that carried him to his work,
Tom took up his paper with a leisure that straightway left him, for his
eyes were instantly caught by the big headlines sketching the explosion
in the Avon. He raced through the three columns. He could see Foley
behind the whole outrage, and he thrilled with satisfaction as he
foresaw the beginning of Foley's undoing in the police court. There was
no work for him that morning. He leaped off the car and took another
that brought him near the court where the three men were to have their
preliminary hearing.
It was half-past eight when he reached the court. As he entered the
almost empty court-room he saw Foley and a black-maned man of
lego-theatric appearance standing before a police sergeant, and he heard
Foley say: "This is their lawyer; we want to see 'em straight off." Tom
preferred to avoid meeting Foley, so he turned quickly back and walked
about for half an hour. When he returned the small court-room was
crowded, the clerks were in place, the policemen and their prisoners
stood in a long queue having its head at the judge's desk and its tail
without the iron railing that fenced off the spectators.
Tom had been in the court-room but a few minutes when an officer
motioned him within the railing. The court attorney stepped to his side.
"You were pointed out to me as the president of the Iron Workers'
Union," said the attorney.
"Yes."
"And I was told you didn't care particularly for the prisoners in this
explosion case."
"Well?"
"Would you be willing to testify against them--not upon the explosion,
which you didn't see, but upon their character?"
Tom looked at Jake, Arkansas, and Bill, standing at the head of the
queue in charge of the two Pinkertons and a couple of policemen, and
struggled a moment with his thoughts. Ordinarily it was a point of
honor with a union man not to aid the law against a fellow member; but
this was not an ordinary case. The papers had thrown the whole blame for
the outrage upon the union. The union's innocence could be proved only
by fastening the blame upon Foley and the three prisoners.
"I will," he consented.
There was a tiresome wait for the judge. About ten o'clock he emerged
from his chambers and took his place upon his platform. He was a
cold-looking man, with an aristocratic face, deeply marked with lines of
hard justice, and with a time-tonsured pate. His enemies, and they were
many, declared his judgments ignored the law; his answer was that he
administered the law according to common sense, and not according to its
sometimes stupid letter.
The bailiff opened the court, and the case of Jake, Arkansas, and Bill
was called. The two Pinkertons recited the details of the explosion and
the two policemen added details of the arrest. Then Mr. Baxter, looking
pale, but as much the self-controlled gentleman as ever, testified to
the damage done by the dynamite. The Avon still stood, but its steel
frame was so wrenched at the base that it was liable to fall at any
moment. The building would have to be reconstructed entirely. Though
much of the material could be used again, the loss, at a conservative
estimate, would be seventy-five thousand dollars.
Tom came next before the judge's desk. Exclamations of surprise ran
among the union men in the room when it was seen Tom was to be a
witness, and the bailiff had to pound with his gavel and shout for
order. Tom testified that the three were known in the union as men ready
for any villainy; and he managed to introduce in his answers to the
questions enough to make it plain that the union was in no degree
responsible for the outrage, that it abhorred such acts, that
responsibility rested upon the three--"And someone else," he added
meaningly.
"Who's that?" quickly demanded the court attorney.
"Buck Foley."
"I object!" shouted the prisoners' attorney. Foley, who sat back in the
crowd with crossed legs, did not alter his half-interested expression by
a wrinkle.
"Objection over-ruled," said the judge.
"Will you please tell what you know about Mr. Foley's connection with
the case," continued the court attorney.
"I object, your Honor! Mr. Foley is not on trial."
"It's the duty of this court to get at all the facts," returned the
judge. "Does the witness speak from his own knowledge, or what he
surmises?"
"I'm absolutely certain he's at the bottom of this."
"But is your evidence first-hand information?"
"It is not," Tom had to confess. "But I couldn't be more certain if I
had seen him----"
"Guess-work isn't evidence," cut in the judge.
Tom, however, had attached Foley to the case--he had seen the reporters
start at his words as at a fresh sensation--and he gave a look of
satisfaction at Foley as he stepped away from the judge's desk. Foley
gave back a half-covered sneer, as if to say, "Just youse wait!"
Arkansas was the first of the prisoners to be called--the reason for
which priority, as Tom afterwards guessed, being his anomalous face that
would not have ill-suited a vest that buttoned to the chin and a collar
that buttoned at the back. Arkansas, replying to the questions of his
long-haired attorney, corroborated the testimony of the policemen and
the Pinkertons in every detail. When Arkansas had answered the last
query the lawyer allowed several seconds to pass, his figure drawn up
impressively, his right hand in the breast of his frock coat.
The judge bent over his docket and began to write. "This seems a
perfectly plain case. I hold the three prisoners for the grand jury,
each in ten thousand----"
The attorney's right hand raised itself theatrically. "Hold!" he cried.
The judge looked up with a start. Tom's eyes, wandering to Foley's face,
met there a malign grin.
"The case is not ended, your Honor. The case is just begun." The
attorney brushed back his mane with a stagy movement of his hand, and
turned upon Arkansas. "You and the other prisoners did this. You do not
deny it. But now tell his Honor why you did it."
Arkansas, with honesty fairly obtruding from his every feature, looked
nervously at Tom, and then said hesitantly: "Because we had to."
"And why did you have to?"
Again Arkansas showed hesitation.
"Speak out," encouraged the attorney. "You're in no danger. The court
will protect you."
"We was ordered to. If we hadn't done it we'd been thrown out o' the
union, an' been done up."
"Explain to the court what you mean by 'done up'."
"Slugged an' kicked--half killed."
"In other words, what you did was done in fear of your life. Now who
ordered you to blow up the Avon, and threatened to have you 'done up' if
you didn't?"
"Mr. Keating, the president o' the union."
The judge, who had been leaning forward with kindling eyes, breathed a
prolonged "A-a-ah!"
For a moment Tom was astounded. Then he sprang to Arkansas's side. "You
infernal liar!" he shouted, his eyes blazing.
The judge's hammer thundered down. "Silence!" he roared.
"But, your Honor, he's lying!"
"Five dollars for contempt of court! Another word and I'll give you the
full penalty."
Two officers jerked Tom back, and surging with indignant wrath he had to
listen in silence to the romance that had been spun for Arkansas's lips
and which he was now respinning for the court's ears; and he quickly
became aware that newspaper artists had set their pencils busy over his
face. Once, glancing at Jake, he was treated with a leer of triumph.
Arkansas plausibly related what had passed between Tom and himself and
his two companions; and then Bill took the stand, and then Jake. Each
repeated the story Arkansas, with the help of his face, had made so
convincing.
"And now, your Honor," the prisoners' attorney began when his evidence
was all in, "I think I have made plain my clients' part in this most
nefarious outrage. They are guilty--yes. But they were but the all too
weak instruments of another's will, who galvanized them by mortal fear
to do his dastardly bidding. He, he alone----"
"Save your eloquence, councilor," the judge broke in. "The case speaks
best for itself. You here." He crooked his forefinger at Tom.
Tom was pushed by policemen up before the judge.
"Now what have you to say for yourself?" the judge demanded.
"It's one string of infernal lies!" Tom exploded. And he launched into a
hot denial, strong in phrasing but weak in comparison with the
inter-corroborative stones of the three, which had the further
verisimilitude gained by tallying in every detail with the officers'
account of the explosion.
"What you say is merely denial, the denial we hear from every criminal,"
his Honor began when Tom had finished. "I do not say I believe every
word of the testimony of the three prisoners. But it is more credible
than your statements.
"What has been brought out here to-day--the supreme officer of a union
compelling members to commit an act of violence by threat of economic
disablement and of physical injury, perhaps death--is in perfect accord
with the many diabolical practices that have recently been revealed as
existing among trade unions. It is such things as this that force all
right-minded men to regard trade unionism as the most menacing danger
which our nation now confronts." And for five minutes he continued in
his arraignment of trade unions.
"In the present circumstances," he ended, "it is my duty to order the
arrest of this man who appears to be the chief conspirator--this
president of a union who has had the supreme hardihood to appear as a
witness against his own tools, doubtless hoping thereby to gain the end
of the thief who cried 'stop thief.' I hold him in fifteen thousand
dollars bond to await the action of the grand jury. The three prisoners
are held in five thousand dollars bail each."
Jake, Bill, and Arkansas were led away by their captors, and Tom,
utterly dazed by this new disaster that had overtaken him when he had
thought there was nothing more that could befall, was shoved over to the
warrant clerk. And again he caught Foley's eyes; they were full of
malicious satisfaction.
As he waited before the warrant clerk's desk he saw Mr. Baxter, on his
way to the door, brush by Foley, and in the moment of passing he saw
Foley's lips move. He did not hear Foley's words. They were two, and
were: "First round!"
A few minutes later Tom was led down a stairway, through a corridor and
locked in a cell.
Chapter XX
TOM HAS A CALLER
Late in the afternoon, as Tom lay stretched in glowering melancholy on
the greasy, dirt-browned board that did service as chair and bed to the
transitory tenants of the cell, steps paused in the corridor without and
a key rattled in his door. He rose dully out of his dejection. A
scowling officer admitted a man, round and short and with side whiskers,
and locked the door upon his back.
"This is a pretty how-to-do!" growled the man, coming forward.
Tom stared at his visitor. "Why, Mr. Driscoll!" he cried.
"That's who the most of my friends say I am," the contractor admitted
gruffly.
He deposited himself upon the bench that had seated and bedded so much
unwashed misfortune, and, his back against the cement wall, turned his
sour face about the bare room. "This is what I call a pretty poor sort
of hospitality to offer a visitor," he commented, in his surly voice.
"Not even a chair to sit on."
"There is also the floor; you may take your choice," Tom returned,
nettled by the other's manner. He himself took the bench.
Mr. Driscoll stared at him with blinking eyes, and he stared back
defiantly. In Tom's present mood of wrath and depression his temper was
tinder waiting another man's spark.
"Huh!" Mr. Driscoll ran his pudgy forefinger easefully about between his
collar and his neck, and removing his spectacles mopped his purple face.
"What's this funny business you've been up to now?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" Tom demanded, his irritation mounting.
"You ought to read the papers and keep posted on what you do. I just saw
a _Star_. There's half a page of your face, and about a pint of red
ink."
Tom groaned, and his jaws clamped ragefully.
"What I read gave me the impression you'd been having a sort of private
Fourth of July celebration," Mr. Driscoll pursued.
Tom turned on the contractor half savagely. "See here! I don't know what
you came here for, but if it was for this kind of talk--well, you can
guess how welcome you are!"
Mr. Driscoll emitted a little chuckling sound, or Tom thought for an
instant he did. But a glance at that sour face, with its straight
pouting mouth, corrected Tom's ears.
"Now, what was your fool idea in blowing up the Avon?"
Tom uprose wrathfully. "Do you mean to say you believe the lies those
blackguards told this morning?"
"I only know what I read in the papers."
"If you swallow everything you see in the papers, you must have an awful
maw!"
"Yes, I suppose you have got some sort of a story you put up."
Tom glared at his pudgy visitor who questioned with such an exasperating
presumption. "Did I ask you here?" he demanded.
The contractor's eyes snapped, and Tom expected hot words. But none
came. "Don't get hot under the collar," Mr. Driscoll advised, running
his comforting finger under his own. "Come, what's your side of the
story?"
Tom was of half a mind to give a curt refusal. But his wrong was too
great, too burning, for him to keep silent upon it. He would have talked
of it to any one--to his very walls. He took a turn in the cell, then
paused before his old employer and hotly explained his innocence and
Foley's guilt.
While Tom spoke Mr. Driscoll's head nodded excitedly.
"Just what I said!" he cried when Tom ended, and brought his fist down
on his knee. "Well, we'll show him!"
"Show him what?" Tom asked.
Mr. Driscoll stopped his fist midway in another excited descent. He
stood up, for he saw the officer's scowling face at the grated front of
the cell. "Oh, a lot of things before he dies. As for you, keep your
courage up. What else's it for?"
He held out his hand. Tom took it with bewildered perfunctoriness.
Mr. Driscoll passed through the door, held open by the officer. Outside
he turned about and growled through the bars: "Now don't be blowing up
any more buildings!"
Tom, stung anew, would have retorted in kind, but Mr. Driscoll's
footsteps had died away down the corridor before adequate words came to
him.
It was about an hour later that the officer appeared before his cell
again and unlocked his door. "Come on," he said shortly.
Tom, supposing he was at length to be removed to the county jail, put on
his hat and stepped outside the cell. He had expected to find policemen
in the corridor, and to be handcuffed. But the officer was alone.
Two cells away he saw Jake's malignant face peering at him through the
bars. "I guess this puts us about even!" Jake called out.
Tom shook his fist. "Wait till the trial! We'll see!" he cried
vengefully.
"Shut up, youse!" shouted the surly watchman. He pushed Tom through the
corridor and up a stairway. At its head Tom was guided through a door,
and found himself in the general hall of the police station.
"Here youse are," said the officer, starting for the sergeant's desk.
"Come on and sign the bail bond."
Tom caught his arm. "What's this mean?" he cried.
"Don't youse know? Youse're bailed out."
"Bailed out! Who by?"
"Didn't he tell youse?" Surprise showed in the crabbed face of the
officer. "Why, before he done anything he went down to talk it over with
youse."
"Not Mr. Driscoll?"
"I don't know his name. That red-faced old geezer in the glasses.
Huh!--his coin comes easier'n mine."
Tom put his name to the bond, already signed by Mr. Driscoll, and
stumbled out into the street, half blinded by the rush of sunlight into
his cell-darkened eyes, and struck through with bewilderment at his
unexpected liberation. He threw off a number of quizzing reporters, who
had got quick news of his release, and walked several aimless blocks
before he came back to his senses. Then he set out for Mr. Driscoll's
office, almost choking with emotion at the prospect of meeting Ruth
again. But he reached it too late to spend his thanks or to test his
self-control. It was past six and the office was locked.
He started home, and during the car ride posted himself upon his recent
doings by reading the accounts of the trial and his part in the Avon
outrage. On reaching the block in which he lived he hesitated long
before he found the courage to go up to the ordeal of telling Maggie his
last misfortune. When he entered his flat it was to find it empty. He
sat down at the window, with its backyard view of clothes-lines and of
fire-escape landings that were each an open-air pantry, and rehearsed
the sentences with which he should break the news to her, his suspense
mounting as the minutes passed. At length her key sounded in the lock,
he heard her footsteps, then saw her dim shape come into the
sitting-room.
In the same instant she saw him at the window. "What--Tom!" she cried,
with the tremulous relief of one who ends a great suspense.
He had been nerving himself to face another mood than this. He was taken
aback by the unexpected note in her voice--a sympathetic note he had not
heard for such a time it seemed he had never heard it at all.
He rose, embarrassed. "Yes," he said.
She had come quickly to his side, and now caught his arm. "You are here,
Tom?"
"Why, yes," he answered, still dazed and at a loss. "Where have you
been, Maggie?"
Had the invading twilight not half blindfolded him, Tom could have seen
the rapid change that took place in Maggie's face--the relief at finding
him safe yielding to the stronger emotion beneath it. When she answered
her voice was as of old. "Been? Where haven't I been? To the jail the
last place."
"To the jail?" He was again surprised. "Then ... you know all?"
"Know all?" She laughed harshly, a tremolo beneath the harshness. "How
could I help knowing all? The newsboys yelling down in the street! The
neighbors coming in with their sympathy!" She did not tell him how to
these visitors she had hotly defended his innocence.
"I didn't know you were at the police station," he said weakly, still at
a loss.
"Of course not. When I got there they told me you'd been let out." Her
breath was coming rapidly, deeply. "What a time I had! I didn't know
how to get to the jail! Dragging myself all over town! Those awful
papers everywhere! Everybody looking at me and guessing who I was! Oh,
the disgrace! The disgrace!"
"But, Maggie, I didn't do this!"
"The world don't know that!" The rage and despair that had been held in
check all afternoon by her concern for him now completely mastered her.
"We're disgraced! You've been in jail! You're now only out on bail!
Fifteen thousand dollars bail! Why that boss, Mr. Driscoll, went on it,
heaven only knows! You're going to be tried. Even if you get off we'll
never hear the last of it. Hadn't we had trouble enough? Now it's
disgrace! And why's this come on us? You tell me that!"
She was shaking all over, and for her to speak was a struggle with her
sobs. She supported herself with arms on the table, and looked at him
fiercely, wildly, through the dim light.
Tom took her arm. "Sit down, Maggie," he said, and tried to push her
into a chair.
She repulsed him. "Answer me. Why has this trouble come on us?"
He was silent.
"Oh, you know! Because you wouldn't take a little advice from your wife!
Other men got along with Foley and held their jobs. But you wanted to be
different; you wanted to fight Foley. Well, you've had your way; you've
fought him. And what of it? We're ruined! Disgraced! You're working for
less than half what you used to get. We're ashamed to show our faces in
the street. All because you wouldn't pay any attention to me. And
me--how I've got to suffer for it! Oh, my God! My God!"
Tom recognized the justice, from her point of view, in her wild phrases
and did not try to dispute her. He again tried to push her into a chair.
She threw off his hand, and went hysterically on, now beating her
knuckles upon the table. "Leave me alone! I've made up my mind about one
thing. You won't listen to reason. I've given you good advice. I've been
right every time. You've paid no attention to me and we're ruined! Well,
I've made up my mind. If you do this sort of thing again, I'll lock you
out of the house! D'you hear? I'll lock you out of the house!"
She fell of her own accord into a chair, and with her head in her hands
abandoned herself to sobbing. Tom looked at her silently. In a narrow
way, she was right. In a broad way, he knew he was right. But he could
not make her understand, so there was nothing he could say. Presently he
noticed that her hair had loosened and her hat had fallen over one
cheek. With unaccustomed hands he took out the pins and laid the hat
upon the table. She gave no sign that she had noted the act.... Her sobs
became fewer and less violent.
Tom quietly lit the gas. "Where's Ferdinand?" he asked, in his ordinary
voice.
"I left him with Mrs. Jones," she answered through her hands.
When Tom came back with the boy she was in the kitchen, a big apron over
her street dress, beginning the dinner. Tom looked in upon her, then
obeying an impulse long unstirred he began to set the table. She
glanced furtively at this unusual service, but said nothing. She sat
through the meal with hard face, but did not again refer to the day's
happenings; and, since the day was Wednesday, as soon as he had eaten
Tom hurried away to Potomac Hall.
Tom was surrounded by friends the minute he entered the hall. The ten
o'clock edition of the evening papers, out before seven, had acquainted
them with his release. The accounts in this edition played up the
anomaly of this labor ruffian, shown by his act to be the arch-enemy of
the employers, being bailed out by one of the very contractors with whom
the union was at war. Two of the papers printed interviews with Mr.
Driscoll upon the question, why had he done it? One interview was, "I
don't know"; the other, "None of your business."
Tom's friends had the curiosity of the papers, and put to him the
question the news sheets had put to Mr. Driscoll. "If Mr. Driscoll don't
know, how can I?" was all the answer he could give them. Their
curiosity, however, was weak measured by their indignation over the turn
events had taken in the court-room. They would stand by him at his
trial, they declared, and show what his relations had been with Jake,
Bill and Arkansas.
Before the meeting was opened there was talk among the Foleyites against
Tom being allowed to preside, but he ended their muttering by marching
to his table and pounding the union to order. He immediately took the
floor and in a speech filled with charges against Foley gave to the
union his side of the facts that had already been presented them from a
different viewpoint in the papers. When he ended Foley's followers
looked to their chief to make reply, but Foley kept his seat. Connelly,
seeing it his duty to defend his leader, was rising to his feet when a
glance from Foley made him sink back into his chair. The talk from Tom's
side went hotly on for a time, but, meeting with no resistance, and
having no immediate purpose, it dwindled away.
The union then turned to matters pertaining to the management of the
strike. As the discussion went on followers of Foley slipped quietly
about the hall whispering in the ears of their brethren. The talk became
tedious. Tom's friends, wearied and uninterested, sat in silence.
Foleyites spoke at great length upon unimportant details. Foley himself
made a long speech, the like of which had never before come from him, it
was that dull and purposeless. At half-past ten, by which time the men
usually were restless to be out of the hall and bound toward their beds,
adjournment seemed as far off as at eight. Sleepy and bored by the
stupid discussion, members began to go out, and most of those that left
were followers of Tom. The pointless talk went on; men kept slipping
out. At twelve o'clock not above two hundred were in the hall, and of
these not two dozen were Tom's friends.
Tom saw Foley cast his eyes over the thinned crowd, and then give a
short nod at Connelly. The secretary stood up and claimed Tom's
recognition.
"Mr. President, I move we suspend the constitution."
The motion was instantly seconded. Tom promptly ruled it out of order,
on the ground that it was unconstitutional to suspend the constitution.
But he was over-ruled, only a score siding with him. The motion was put
and was carried by the same big majority that had voted against his
decision.
Connelly rose a second time. "I make a motion that we remove the
president from office on the charge that he is the instigator of an
outrage that has blackened the fair name of our union before all the
world."
A hundred voices cried a second to the motion. Tom rose and looked with
impotent wrath into the faces of the crowd from which Foley's cunning
had removed his followers. Then he tossed the gavel upon the table.
"I refuse to put the motion!" he shouted; and picking up his hat he
strode down the middle aisle. Half-way to the door he heard Connelly, in
the absence of the vice-president, put the motion; and turning as he
passed out he glimpsed the whole crowd on its feet.
The next morning Tom saw by his newspaper that Connelly was the union's
new president; also that he had been dropped from the strike committee,
Hogan now being in his place. The reports in the papers intimated that
the union had partially exonerated itself by its prompt discardure of
the principal in the Avon explosion. The editorial pages expressed
surprise that the notorious Foley bore no relation to an outrage that
seemed a legitimate offspring of his character.
Tom had not been at work more than an hour when a boy brought him word
that the superintendent of the shipping department desired to see him.
He hurried to his superior's office.
"You were not at work yesterday?" the superintendent said.
"No," Tom admitted.
The head of the department drew a morning paper from a pigeon-hole and
pointed at a face on its first page. "Your likeness, I believe."
"It was intended for me."
He touched a button, and a clerk appeared. "Phillips, make out Keating's
time check." He turned sharply back upon Tom. "That's all. We've got no
use for anarchists in our business."
Chapter XXI
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
When Ruth carried a handful of letters she had just finished into Mr.
Driscoll's office--this while he sat talking to Tom in the latter's
cell--she saw staring luridly at her from the desk the newspaper that
had sent her employer to the jail on his errand of gruff mercy. There
was a great drawing of Tom's face, brutalized, yet easily recognizable,
and over it the heavy crimson heading:
TOOLS UNION PRESIDENT
OF
FORCED BY BLEW UP THE AVON
DEATH THREATS
The stare of that brutal face and of those red words sent her sinking
into Mr. Driscoll's chair, and the letters fluttered to the floor. After
a moment she reached in eager revulsion for the paper, and her eyes
reeled through the high-colored account of the court scene. What was
printed there was the newest of news to her; she had lunched early, and
the paper she had bought to learn the latest developments in the Avon
case had carried her only to the beginning of the trial. As she read, a
dizzy sickness ran through all her body. The case against Tom, as the
papers made it out, was certainly strong; and the fact that he, the
instigator of the outrage, had attempted to escape blame by seeking to
help convict his own tools was emphasized as the most blackening phase
of the whole black affair. But strong as the case appeared, within her
sickened, bewildered self there was something that protested the story
could not possibly be true.
During the weeks that had passed since she had last seen Tom she had
wondered much that he had not come again, guessing every reason but the
right one. When ten days had passed without a visit from him she had
concluded that he must be too busy in the management of the strike to
spare an evening; she did not know how completely Tom had been crowded
off the stage by Foley. When more days had passed, and still no call
from him, her subtle woman's nature had supplied another reason, and one
that was a sufficient explanation to her even to the present. She knew
what Tom's feelings were toward her; a woman needs precious little
insight to discover when a man loves her. For all her instinctive
democracy, she was perfectly conscious of the social difference between
herself and him, and with not unnatural egotism she endowed Tom with the
same consciousness. He loved her, but felt their social inequality, and
felt it with such keenness that he deemed it hopeless to try to win her,
and so had decided to see her no more.
Such was her explanation of his absence. She pitied him with a warm
romantic pity for his renunciation. Held away by such a reason, she knew
that if ever he came it must be at her bidding. At times she had been
impelled to send for him to come. To her this was not an impulse of
prohibitive unmaidenliness; she could bend to a man who thought himself
beneath her as she never could to a man on her own level. But she had
not sent. To do so without being prepared to give him what he desired
would be to do him a great wrong, and to give him this she was neither
able nor ready. She admired all that was good in him; but she could not
blind her eyes to his shortcomings, and to go into his world, with its
easily imagined coarseness, with its ignorance of books and music and
painting, and all the little refinements that were dear to her, she
could not. And yet her heart had ached that he had not come.
But now as she read the story of his disgrace, and as the reflux of wits
and strength began, all her heart was one protest of his innocence, and
she forgot all the little differences that had before halted her desire
to see him; and this desire, freed of its checks, suddenly expanded till
it filled the uttermost recesses of her soul.
Her first impulse, when she had reached the story's end, was to go
straight to him, and she went so far as to put on her hat. But reason
stopped her at the door. She could do him no good, and her call would be
but an embarrassment to them both. She removed her hat, and sat down to
surging thoughts.
She was sitting at her desk, white and weak, reading anew the lurid
story in the paper, when Mr. Driscoll passed through her room into his
office with hat drawn over his eyes. She looked through his open door
for several minutes--and then, obeying the desire for the relief of
speech, she went in.
"Did you see this article about Mr. Keating?" she asked, trying to keep
her personal interest in Tom from showing in her voice.
Mr. Driscoll's hat brim was still over his eyes. He did not look up.
"Yes," he said gruffly.
"You remember him, don't you?--one of the foremen?"
The hat brim moved affirmatively.
She had to summon all her strength to put her next question with
calmness. "What will be done with him?"
"I don't know. Blowing up buildings isn't a very innocent amusement."
"But he didn't do it!"
"He didn't? Hum!"
Ruth burned to make a hot defense. But instead she asked: "Do you think
he's the sort of a man to do a thing of that sort? He says he didn't."
"What d'you suppose he'd say?"
She checked her rising wrath. "But what do you think will be done with
him?"
"Hung," growled Mr. Driscoll.
She glared at him, but his hat brim shielded off her resentment; and
without another word she swept indignantly out of the room.
Ruth went home in that weakening anxiety which is most felt by the
helpless. On the way she bought an evening paper, but there was nothing
new in it. After a dinner hardly touched she went into the street and
got a ten o'clock edition. It had the story of Tom's release on bail.
"Why, the dear old bear!" she gasped, as she discovered that Mr.
Driscoll had gone Tom's bond. She hurried to her room and in utter
abandonment to her emotion wrote Tom a note asking him to call the
following evening.
The next morning Tom, discharged but half an hour before, walked into
Ruth's office. He had stood several minutes in front of the building
before he had gained sufficient control to carry him through the certain
meeting with her. She went red at sight of him, and rose in a throbbing
confusion, but subdued herself to greet him with a friendly cordiality.
"It's been a long time since I've seen you," she said, giving him her
hand. It was barely touched, then dropped.
"Yes. I've been--very--busy," Tom mumbled, his big chest heaving. It
seemed that his mind, his will, were slipping away from him. He seized
his only safety. "Is Mr. Driscoll in?"
"Yes." Suddenly chilled, she went into Mr. Driscoll's room. "He says
he's too busy to see you," she said on her return; and then a little of
her greeting smile came back: "But I think you'd better go in, anyhow."
As Tom entered Mr. Driscoll looked up with something that was meant to
be a scowl. He had had one uncomfortable scene already that morning.
"Didn't I say I was busy?" he asked sharply.
"I was told you were. But you didn't think I'd go away without thanking
you?"
"It's a pity a man can't make a fool of himself without being slobbered
over. Well, if you've got to, out with it! But cut it short."
Tom expressed his thanks warmly, and obediently made them brief. "But I
don't know what you did it for?" he ended.
"About fifty reporters have been asking that same thing."
The telephone in Ruth's office began to ring. He waited expectantly.
"Mr. Bobbs wants to speak to you," said Ruth, appearing at the door.
"Tell him I'm out--or dead," he ordered, and went on to Tom: "And he's
about the seventeenth contractor that's asked the same question, and
tried to walk on my face. Maybe because I don't love Foley. I don't know
myself. A man goes out of his head now and then, I suppose." His eyes
snapped crossly.
"If you're sorry this morning, withdraw the bail and I'll----"
"Don't you try to be a fool, too! All I ask of you is, don't skip town,
and don't blow up any more buildings."
Tom gave his word, smiling into the cross face; and was withdrawing,
when Mr. Driscoll stood up. "When this strike you started is over come
around to see me." He held out his hand; his grasp was warm and tight.
"Good-by."
Tom, having none of that control and power of simulation which are given
by social training, knew of but one way to pass safely by the danger
beyond Mr. Driscoll's door. He hurried across Ruth's office straight for
the door opening into the hallway. He had his hand on the knob, when he
felt how brutal was his discourtesy. He turned his head. Ruth sat
before the typewriter, her white face on him.
"Good-by," he said.
She did not answer, and he went dazedly out.
Ruth sat in frozen stillness for long after he had gone. This new
bearing of Tom toward her fitted her explanation for his long
absence--and did not fit it. If he had renounced her, though loving her,
he probably would have borne himself in the abrupt way he had just done.
And he might have acted in just this same way had he come to be
indifferent to her. This last was the chilling thought. If he had
received her letter then his abrupt manner could mean only that this
last thought struck the truth. When she had written him she had been
certain of his feeling for her; that certainty now changed to
uncertainty, she would have given half her life to have called the
letter back with unbroken seal.
She told herself that he would not come,--told herself this as she
automatically did her work, as she rode home in the car, as she made
weak pretense of eating dinner. And yet, after dinner, she put on the
white dress that his eyes had told her he liked so well. And later, when
Mr. Berman's card was brought her, she sent down word that she was ill.
Presently ... he came. He did not speak when she opened the door to him,
nor did she. There was an unmastering fever burning in his throat and
through all his body; and all her inner self was the prisoner of a
climacteric paralysis. They held hands for a time, laxly, till one
loosed, and then both swung limply back to their places.
"I just got your letter to-night--when I got home," he said, driving out
the words. But he said nothing of his struggle: how he had fought back
his longing and determined not to come; and how, the victory won, he had
madly thrown wisdom aside and rushed to her.
They found seats, somehow, she in a chair, he on the green couch, and
sat in a silence their heart-beats seemed to make sonant. She was the
first to recover somewhat, and being society bred and so knowing the
necessity of speech, she questioned him about his arrest.
He started out on the story haltingly. But little by little his fever
lost its invalidating control, and little by little the madness in his
blood, the madness that had forced him hither, possessed his brain and
tongue, and the words came rapidly, with spirit. Finishing the story of
his yesterday he harked back to the time he had last seen her, and told
her what had happened in the second part of that evening in the hall
over the Third Avenue saloon; told her how Foley had stolen the strike;
how he had declined to his present insignificance. And as he talked he
eagerly drank in her sympathy, and loosed himself more and more to the
enjoyment of the mad pleasure of being with her. To her his words were
not the account of the more or less sordid experiences of a workingman;
they were the story of the reverses of the hero who, undaunted, has
given battle to one whom all others have dared not, or cared not, fight.
"What will you do now?" she asked when he had ended.
"I don't know. Foley says he has me down and out--if you know what that
means."
She nodded.
"I guess he's about right. Not many people want to hire men who blow up
buildings. I had thought I'd work at whatever I could till October--our
next election's then--and run against Foley again. But if he wins the
strike he may be too strong to beat."
"But do you think he'll win the strike?"
"He'll be certain to win, though this explosion will injure us a lot.
He's in for the strike for all he's worth, and when he fights his best
he's hard to beat. The bosses can't get enough iron-men to keep their
jobs going. That's already been proved. And in a little while all the
other trades will catch up to where we left off; they'll have to stop
then, for they can't do anything till our work's been done. That'll be
equivalent to a general strike in all the building trades. We'll be
losing money, of course, but so'll the bosses. The side'll win that can
hold out longest, and we're fixed to hold out."
"According to all the talk I hear the victory is bound to go the
opposite way."
"Well, you know some people then who'll be mighty disappointed!" Tom
returned.
She did not take him up, and silence fell between them. Thus far their
talk had been of the facts of their daily lives, and though it had been
unnatural in that it was far from the matter in both their hearts, yet
by help of its moderate distraction they had managed to keep their
feelings under control. But now, that distraction ended, Tom's fever
began to burn back upon him. He sat rigidly upright, his eyes avoiding
her face, and the fever flamed higher and higher. Ruth gazed whitely at
him, hands gripped in her lap, her faculties slipping from her, waiting
she hardly knew what. Minutes passed, and the silence between them grew
intenser and more intense.
Amid her throbbing dizziness Ruth's mind held steadily to just two
thoughts: she was again certain of Tom's love, and certain that his
pride would never allow him to speak. These two thoughts pointed her the
one thing there was for her to do; the one thing that must be done for
both their sakes--and finally she forced herself to say: "It has been a
long time since you have been to see me. I had thought you had quite
forgotten me."
"I have thought of you often?" he managed to return, eyes still fixed
above her, his self-control tottering.
"But in a friendly way?--No.--Or you would not have been silent through
two months."
His eyes came down and fastened upon that noble face, and the words
escaped by the guard he tried to keep at his lips: "I have never had a
friend like you."
She waited.
"You are my best friend," the words continued.
She waited again, but he said nothing more.
She drove herself on. "And yet you could--stay away two months?--till I
sent for you?"
He stood up, and walked to the window and stood as if looking through
it--though the shade was drawn. She saw the fingers at his back writhing
and knotting themselves. She waited, unwinking, hardly breathing, all
her life in the tumultuous beating of her heart.
He turned about. His face was almost wild. "I stayed away--because I
love you----" His last word was a gasp, and he did not have the strength
to say the rest.
It had come! Her great strain over, she fairly collapsed in a swooning
happiness. Her head drooped, and she swayed forward till her elbows were
on her knees. For a moment she existed only in her great, vague, reeling
joy. Then she heard a spasmodic gasp, and heard his hoarse words add:
"And because--I am married."
Her head uprose slowly, and she looked at him, looked at him, with a
deadly stupefaction in her eyes. A sickening minute passed. "Married?"
she whispered.
"Yes--married."
A terrified pallor overspread her face, but the face held fixedly to his
own. He stood rigid, looking at her. Her strange silence began to alarm
him.
"What is it?" he cried.
Her face did not change, and seconds passed. Suddenly a gasp, then a
little groan, broke from her.
"Married!" she cried.
For a moment he was astounded; then he began dimly to understand. "What,
you don't mean----" he commenced, with dry lips. He moved, with
uncertain steps, up before her. "You don't--care for me?"
The head bowed a trifle.
"Oh, my God!" He half staggered backward into a chair, and his face fell
into his hands. He saw, in an agonizing vision, what might have been
his, and what never could be his; and he saw the wide desert of his
future.
"You!" He heard her voice, and he looked up.
She was on her feet, and was standing directly in front of him. Her
hands were clenched upon folds of her skirt. Her breath was coming
rapidly. Her eyes were flashing.
"You! How could you come to see me as you have, and you married?" She
spoke tremulously, fiercely, and at the last her voice broke into a sob.
Tears ran down her cheeks, but she did not heed them.
Tom's face dropped back into his hands; he could not stand the awful
accusation of that gaze. She was another victim of his tragedy, an
innocent victim--and _his_ victim. He saw in a flash the whole ghastly
part he, in ignorance, had played. A groan burst from his lips, and he
writhed in his self-abasement.
"How could you do it?" he heard her fiercely demand again. "Oh, you!
you!" He heard her sweep across the little room, and then sweep back;
and he knew she was standing before him, gazing down at him in anguish,
anger, contempt.
He groaned again. "What can I say to you--what?"
There was silence. He could feel her eyes, unchanging, still on him.
Presently he began to speak into his hands, in a low, broken voice. "I
can make no excuse. I don't know that I can explain. But I never
intended to do this. Never! Never!
"You know how we met, how we came to be together the first two or three
times. Afterwards ... I said awhile ago that you were my best friend. I
have had few real friends--none but you who sympathized with me, who
seemed to understand me. Well, afterwards I came because--I never
stopped to think why I came. I guess because you understood, and I liked
you. And so I came. As a man might come to see a good man friend. And I
never once thought I was doing wrong. And I never thought of my
wife--that is, you understand, that she made it wrong for me to see you.
I never thought----If you believe in me at all, you must believe this.
You must! And then--one day--I saw you with another man, and I knew I
loved you. I awoke. I saw what I ought to do. I tried to do it--but it
was very hard--and I came to see you again--the last time. I said once
more I would not see you again. It was still hard, very hard--but I did
not. And then--your letter--came----"
His words dwindled away. Then, after a moment, he said very humbly:
"Perhaps I don't just understand how to be a gentleman."
Again silence. Presently he felt a light touch on his shoulder. He
raised his eyes. She was still gazing at him, her face very white, but
no anger in it.
"I understand," she said.
He rose--weak. "I can't ask that you forgive me."
"No. Not now."
"Of course. I have meant to you only grief--pain. And can mean only that
to you, always."
She did not deny his words.
"Of course," he agreed. Then he stood, without words, unmoving.
"You had better go," she said at length.
He took his hat mechanically. "The future?"
"You were right."
"You mean--we should not meet again?"
"This is the last time."
Again he stood silent, unmoving.
"You had better go," she said. "Good-night."
"Good-night."
He moved sideways to the door, his eyes never leaving her. He paused.
She stood just as she had since she had touched his shoulder. He moved
back to her, as in a trance.
"No." She held up a hand, as if to ward him off.
He took the hand--and the other hand. They were all a-tremble. And he
bent down, slowly, toward her face that he saw as in a mist. The face
did not recede. Their cold lips met. At the touch she collapsed, and the
next instant she was sobbing convulsively in his arms.
* * * * *
And all that night she lay dressed on her couch.... And all that night
he walked the streets.
Chapter XXII
THE PROGRESS OF THE STRIKE
When morning began to creep into the streets, and while it was yet only
a dingy mist, Tom slipped quietly into his flat and stretched his
wearied length upon the couch, his anguish subdued to an aching numbness
by his lone walk. He lay for a time, his eyes turned dully into the back
yard, watching the dirty light grow cleaner; and presently he sank into
a light sleep. After a little his eyes opened and he saw Maggie looking
intently at him from their bedroom door.
For a moment the two of them maintained a silent gaze. Then she asked:
"You were out all night?"
"Yes," he answered passively.
"Why?"
He hesitated. "I was walking about--thinking."
"I should think you would be thinking! After what happened to you
Wednesday, and after losing your job yesterday!"
He did not correct her misinterpretation of his answer, and as he said
nothing more she turned back into the bedroom, and soon emerged dressed.
As she moved about preparing breakfast his eyes rested on her now and
then, and in a not unnatural selfishness he dully wondered why they two
were married. Her feeling for him, he knew, was of no higher sort than
that attachment which dependence upon a man and the sense of being
linked to him for life may engender in an unspiritual woman. There was
no love between them; they had no ideas in common; she was not this, and
not this, and not this. And all the things that she was not, the other
was. And it was always to be Maggie that he was to see thus intimately.
He had bowed to the situation as the ancients bowed to fate--accepted it
as a fact as unchangeable as death that has fallen. And yet, as he lay
watching her, thinking it was to be always so,--always!--his soul was
filled with agonizing rebellion; and so it was to be through many a day
to come. But later, as his first pain began to settle into an aching
sense of irreparable loss, his less selfish vision showed him that
Maggie was no more to blame for their terrible mistake than he, and not
so much; and that she, in a less painful degree, was also a pitiable
victim of their error. He became consciously considerate of her. For her
part, she at first marveled at this gentler manner, then slowly yielded
to it.
But this is running ahead. The first days were all the harder to Tom
because he had no work to share his time with his pain. He did not seek
another position; as he had told Ruth, he knew it would be useless to
ask for work so long as the charge of being a dynamiter rested upon him.
He walked about the streets, trying to forget his pain in mixing among
his old friends, with no better financial hope than to wait till the
court had cleared his name. Several times he met Pig Iron Pete, who,
knowing only the public cause for Tom's dejection, prescribed a few
drinks as the best cure for such sorrow, and showed his faith in his
remedy by offering to take the same medicine. And one evening he brought
his cheerless presence to the Barrys'. "Poor fellow!" sighed Mrs. Barry
after he had gone. "He takes his thumps hard."
One day as he walked about the streets he met Petersen, and with the
Swede was a stocky, red-faced, red-necked man wearing a red necktie
whose brilliance came to a focus in a great diamond pin. Petersen had
continued to call frequently after nightly attendance had become
unnecessary. Two weeks before Tom had gleaned from him by hard
questioning that the monthly rent of twelve dollars was overdue, the
landlord was raging, there was nothing with which to pay, and also
nothing in the house to eat. The next day Tom had drawn fifteen dollars
from his little bank account, and held it by him to give to Petersen
when he next called. But he had not come again. Now on seeing him Tom's
first feeling was of guilt that he had not carried the needed money to
Petersen's home.
The stocky man, when he saw the two were friends, withdrew himself to
the curb and began to clean his nails with his pocket knife. "How are
you, Petersen?" Tom asked.
"I'm purty good," Petersen returned, glancing restlessly at the stocky
man.
"You don't need a little money, do you?" Tom queried anxiously.
"No. I'm vorkin'." He again looked restlessly at his manicuring friend.
"You don't say! That's good. What at?"
Petersen's restlessness became painful. "At de docks."
Tom saw plainly that Petersen was anxious to get away, so he said
good-by and walked on, puzzled by the Swede's strange manner, by his
rather unusual companion, and puzzled also as to how his work as
longshoreman permitted him to roam the streets in the middle of the
afternoon.
When Tom met friends in his restless wanderings and stopped to talk to
them, the subject was usually the injustice he had suffered or the
situation regarding the strike. Up to the day of the Avon explosion the
union as a whole had been satisfied with the strike's progress. That
event, of course, had weakened the strikers' cause before the public.
But the promptness with which the union was credited to have renounced
the instigator of the outrage partially restored the ironworkers to
their position. They were completely restored three days after the
explosion, when Mr. Baxter, smarting under his recent loss and not being
able to retaliate directly upon Foley, permitted himself to be induced
by a newspaper to express his sentiments upon labor unions. The
interview was an elaboration of the views which are already partly known
to the reader. By reason of the rights which naturally belong to
property, he said, by reason of capital's greatly superior intelligence,
it was the privilege of capital, nay even its duty, to arrange the
uttermost detail of its affairs without any consultation whatever with
labor, whose views were always selfish and necessarily always
unintelligent. The high assumption of superiority in Mr. Baxter's
interview, its paternalistic, even monarchical, character, did not
appeal to his more democratic and less capitalized readers, and they
drew nearer in sympathy to the men he was fighting.
As the last days of May passed one by one, Tom's predictions to Ruth
began to have their fulfillment. By the first of June a great part of
the building in the city was practically at a standstill; the other
building trades had caught up with the ironworkers on many of the jobs,
and so had to lay down their tools. The contractors in these trades were
all checked more or less in their work. Their daily loss quickly
overcame their natural sympathy with the iron contractors and Mr. Baxter
was beset by them. "We haven't any trouble with our men," ran the gist
of their complaint. "Why should we be losing money just because you and
your men can't agree? For God's sake, settle it up so we can get to
work!"
Owners of buildings in process of construction, with big sums tied up in
them, began to grow frantic. Their agreements with the contractors
placed upon the latter a heavy fine for every day the completion of the
buildings was delayed beyond the specified time; but the contracts
contained a "strike clause" which exempted the bosses from penalties for
delays caused by strikes. And so the loss incurred by the present delay
fell solely upon the owners. "Settle this up somehow," they were
constantly demanding of Mr. Baxter. "You've delayed my building a month.
There's a month's interest on my money, and my natural profits for a
month, both gone to blazes!"
To all of these Mr. Baxter's answer was in substance the same: "The day
the union gives up, on that day the strike is settled." And this he said
with unchangeable resolution showing through his voice. The bosses and
owners went away cursing and looking hopelessly upon an immediate future
whose only view to them was a desert of loss.
But Mr. Baxter did not have in his heart the same steely decision he had
in his manner. Events had not taken just the course he had foreseen. The
division in the union, on which he had counted for its fall, had been
mended by the subsidence of Tom. The union's resources were almost
exhausted, true, but it was receiving some financial assistance from its
national organization, and its fighting spirit was as strong as ever. If
the aid of the national organization continued to be given, and if the
spirit of the men remained high, Mr. Baxter realized that the union
could hold out indefinitely. The attempt to replace the strikers by
non-union men had been a failure; Mr. Driscoll and himself were the only
contractors who still maintained the expensive farce of keeping a few
scabs at work. And despite his surface indifference to it, the pressure
of the owners of buildings and of the bosses in other trades had a
little effect upon Mr. Baxter, and more than a little upon some other
members of the Executive Committee. A few of the employers were already
eager to yield to the strikers' demand, preferring decreased profits to
a long period of none at all; but when Mr. Isaacs attempted to voice the
sentiments of these gentlemen in a meeting of the Executive Committee, a
look from Mr. Baxter's steady gray eyes was enough to close him up
disconcerted.
So Buck Foley was not without a foundation in fact for his hopeful words
when he said in his report to the union at the first meeting in June:
"The only way we can lose this strike, boys, is to give it away."
Which remark might be said, by one speaking from the vantage of later
events, to have been a bit of unconscious prophecy.
Chapter XXIII
THE TRIUMPH OF BUSINESS SENSE
Mr. Baxter had to withstand pressure from still another source--from
himself. His business sense, as had owners and contractors, demanded of
him an immediate settlement of the strike. In its frequent debates with
him it was its habit to argue by repeating the list of evils begotten by
the strike, placing its emphasis on his losses that promised to continue
for months to come. Unlike most reformers and other critics of the
_status quo_, Mr. Baxter's business sense was not merely destructive; it
offered a practicable plan for betterment--a plan that guaranteed
victory over the strikers and required only the sacrifice of his pride.
But Mr. Baxter's pride refused to be sacrificed. His business sense had
suggested the plan shortly after the union had voted to strike. He would
have adopted the plan immediately, as the obvious procedure in the
situation, had it not been for the break with Foley. But the break had
come, and his pride could not forget that last visit of Foley to his
private office; it had demanded that the walking delegate be
humiliated--utterly crushed. His business sense, from the other side,
had argued the folly of allowing mere emotion to stand in the way of
victory and the profitable resumption of work. Outraged pride had been
the stronger during April and May, but as the possibility of its
satisfaction had grown less and less as May had dragged by, the pressure
of his business sense had become greater and greater. And the Avon
explosion had given business sense a further chance to greaten. "Try the
plan at once," it had exhorted; "if you don't, Foley may do it again."
However, for all the pressure of owners and contractors and of his
business sense--owners and contractors urging any sort of settlement, so
that it be a settlement, business sense urging its own private plan--in
the early days of June Mr. Baxter continued to present the same
appearance of wall-like firmness. But his firmness was that of a dam
that can sustain a pressure of one hundred, and is bearing a pressure of
ninety-nine with its habitual show of eternal fixedness.
Mr. Baxter had to withstand pressure from yet another source--from his
wife. When he had told her in early May that the strike was not going to
be settled as quickly as he had first thought, and had asked her to
practice such temporary economy as she could, she had acquiesced
graciously but with an aching heart; and instead of going to Europe as
she had intended, she and her daughter had run up to Tuxedo, where with
two maids, carriage, and coachman, they were managing to make both ends
meet on three hundred dollars a week. But when the first days of June
had come, and no prospect of settlement, she began to think with
swelling anxiety of the Newport season.
"Why can't this thing be settled right off?" she said to her husband who
had run up Friday evening--the Friday after the Wednesday Foley had
assured the union of certain victory--to stay with her over Saturday and
Sunday. And she acquainted him with her besetting fears.
Only another unit of pressure was needed to overturn the wall of Mr.
Baxter's resistance, and the stress of his wife's words was many times
the force required. During his two days at Tuxedo Mr. Baxter sat much of
the time apart in quiet thought. Mrs. Baxter was too considerate a wife
to repeat to him her anxieties, or to harass him with pleas and
questions, but just before he left early Monday morning for the city she
could not refrain from saying: "You will try, won't you, dear, to end
the strike soon?"
"Yes, dear."
She beamed upon him. "How soon?"
"It will last about three more weeks."
She fell on his neck with a happy cry, and kissed him. She asked him to
explain, but his business sense had told him it would be better if she
did not know the plan, and his love had given him the same counsel; so
he merely answered, "I am certain the union will give up," and plead his
haste to catch his train as excuse for saying nothing more.
That afternoon a regular meeting of the Executive Committee took place
in Mr. Baxter's office. It was not a very cheerful quintet that sat
about the cherry table: Isaacs, in his heart ready to abandon the fight;
Bobbs, Murphy, and Driscoll, determined to win, but with no more speedy
plan than to continue the siege; and Baxter, cold and polite as usual,
and about as inspiring as a frozen thought.
There was nothing in the early part of the meeting to put enthusiasm
into the committee. First of all, Mr. Baxter read a letter from the
Civic Federation, asking the committee if it would be willing to meet
again, in the interest of a settlement, with the strikers' committee.
"Why not?" said Isaacs, trying to subdue his eagerness to a
business-like calm. "We've got nothing to lose by it."
"And nothing to gain!" snorted Driscoll.
"Tell the Civic Federation, not on its life," advised Murphy. "And tell
'em to cut their letters out. We're gettin' tired o' their eternal
buttin' in."
Baxter gave Murphy a chilly glance. "We'll consider that settled then,"
he said quietly. In his own mind, however, he had assigned the offer of
the Civic Federation to a definite use.
There were several routine reports on the condition of the strike; and
the members of the committee had a chance to propose new plans. Baxter
was not ready to offer his--he hung back from broaching it; and the
others had none. "Nothin' to do but set still and starve 'em out," said
Murphy, and no one contradicted him.
At the previous meeting, when pride was still regnant within him, Mr.
Baxter had announced that he had put detectives on the Avon case with
the hope of gaining evidence that would convict Foley of complicity in
the explosion. Since then the detectives had reported that though
morally certain of Foley's direct responsibility they could find not one
bit of legal evidence against him. Furthermore, business sense had
whispered Mr. Baxter that it would be better to let the matter drop, for
if brought to trial Foley might, in a fit of recklessness, make some
undesirable disclosures. So, for his own reasons, Mr. Baxter had thus
far guarded the Avon explosion from the committee's talk. But at length
Mr. Driscoll, restless at the dead subjects they were discussing,
avoided his guard and asked: "Anything new in the Avon business?"
"Nothing. My detectives have failed to find any proof at all of Mr.
Foley's guilt."
"Arrest him anyhow," said Driscoll. "If we can convict him, why the back
of the strike's broken."
"There's no use arresting a man unless you can convict him."
"Take the risk! You're losing your nerve, Baxter."
Baxter flushed the least trifle at Driscoll's words, but he did not
retort. His eyes ran over the faces of the four with barely perceptible
hesitancy. He felt this to be his opening, but the plan of his business
sense was a subject difficult and delicate to handle.
"I have a better use for Mr. Foley," he said steadily.
"Yes?" cried the others, and leaned toward him. When Baxter said this
much, they knew he had a vast deal more to say.
"If we could convict him I'd be in favor of his arrest. But if we try,
we'll fail; and that will be a triumph for the union. So to arrest him
is bad policy."
"Go on," said Murphy.
"Whatever we may say to the public, we know among ourselves this strike
is nowhere near its end. It may last all summer--the entire building
season."
The four men nodded.
Baxter now spoke with apparent effort. "Why not make use of Foley and
win it in three weeks?"
"How?" asked Driscoll suspiciously.
"How?" asked the others eagerly.
"I suppose most of you have been held up by Foley?"
There were four affirmative answers.
"You know he's for sale?"
"I've been forced to buy him!" said Driscoll.
Baxter went on more easily, and with the smoothness of a book. "We have
all found ourselves, I suppose, compelled to take measures in the
interests of peace or the uninterrupted continuance of business that
were repugnant to us. What I am going to suggest is a thing I would
rather not have to do; but we are face to face with two evils, and this
is the lesser.
"You will bear me out, of course, when I say the demands of the union
are without the bounds of reason. We can't afford to grant the demands;
and yet the fight against the union may use up the whole building
season. We'll lose a year's profits, and the men will lose a year's
wages, and in the end we'll win. Since we are certain to win, anyhow,
it seems to me that any plan that will enable us to win at once, and
save our profits and the men's wages, is justifiable."
"Of course," said three of the men.
"What do you mean?" Driscoll asked guardedly.
"Many a rebellion has been quelled by satisfying the leader."
"Oh, come right out with what you mean," demanded Driscoll.
"The quickest way of settling the strike, and the cheapest, for both us
and the union, is to--well, see that Foley is satisfied."
Driscoll sprang to his feet, his chair tumbling on its back, and his
fist came down upon the table. "I thought you were driving at that! By
God, I'm getting sick of this whole dirty underhand way of doing
business. I'd get out if I had a half-way decent offer. The union is in
the wrong. Of course it is! But I want to fight 'em on the square--in
the open. I don't want to win by bribing a traitor!"
"It's a case where it would be wrong not to bribe--if you want to use so
harsh a word," said Baxter, his face tinged the least bit with red. "It
is either to satisfy Mr. Foley or to lose a summer's work and have the
men and their families suffer from the loss of a summer's wages. It's a
choice between evils. I'll leave to the gentlemen here, which is the
greater."
"Oh, give your conscience a snooze, Driscoll!" growled Murphy.
"I think Baxter's reasoning is good," said Bobbs. Isaacs corroborated
him with a nod.
"It's smooth reasoning, but it's rotten!--as rotten as hell!" He glared
about on the four men. "Are you all in for Baxter's plan?"
"We haven't heard it all yet," said Bobbs.
"You've heard enough to guess the rest," snorted Driscoll.
"I think it's worth tryin'," said Murphy.
"Why, yes," said Bobbs.
"We can do no less than that," said Isaacs.
"Then you'll try it without me!" Driscoll shouted. "I resign from this
committee, and resign quick!"
He grabbed his hat from Baxter's desk and stamped toward the door. Mr.
Baxter's smooth voice stopped him as his hand was on the knob.
"Even if you do withdraw, of course you'll keep secret what we have
proposed."
Driscoll gulped for a moment before he could speak; his face deepened
its purplish red, and his eyes snapped and snapped. "Damn you, Baxter,
what sort d'you think I am!" he exploded. "Of course!"
He opened the door, there was a furious slam, and he was gone.
The four men looked at each other questioningly. Baxter broke the
silence. "A good fellow," he said with a touch of pity. "But his ideas
are too inelastic for the business world."
"He ought to be runnin' a girls' boardin' school," commented Murphy.
"Perhaps it's just as well he withdrew," said Baxter. "I take it we're
pretty much of one mind."
"Anything to settle the strike--that's me," said Murphy. "Come on now,
Baxter; give us the whole plan. Just handin' a roll over to Foley ain't
goin' to settle it. That'd do if it was his strike. But it ain't. It's
the union's--about three thousand men. How are you goin' to bring the
union around?"
"The money brings Foley around; Foley brings the union around. It's very
simple."
"As simple as two and two makes seven," growled Murphy. "Give us the
whole thing."
Baxter outlined his entire plan, as he expected it to work out.
"That sounds good," said Bobbs. "But are you certain we can buy Foley
off?"
"Sure thing," replied Murphy, answering for Baxter. "If we offer him
enough."
"How much do you think it'll take?" asked Isaacs.
Baxter named a figure.
"So much as that!" cried Isaacs.
"That isn't very much, coming from the Association," said Baxter.
"You're losing as much in a week as your assessment would come to."
"I suppose you want the whole Association to know all about this,"
remarked Murphy.
"Only we four are to know anything."
"How'll you get the Association to give you the money then?" Murphy
followed up.
"I can get the emergency fund increased. We have to give no account of
that, you know."
"You seem to have thought o' everything, Baxter," Murphy admitted. "I
say we can't see Foley any too soon."
Bobbs and Isaacs approved this judgment heartily.
"I'll write him, then, to meet us here to-morrow afternoon. There's one
more point now." He paused to hunt for a phrase. "Don't you think the
suggestion should--ah--come from him?"
The three men looked puzzled. "My mind don't make the jump," said
Murphy.
Baxter coughed. It was not very agreeable, this having to say things
right out. "Don't you see? If we make the offer, it's--well, it's
bribery. But if we can open the way a little bit, and lead him on to
make the demand, why we're----"
"Held up, o' course!" supplied Murphy admiringly.
"Yes. In that case, if the negotiations with Foley come to nothing, or
there is a break later, Foley can't make capital out of it, as he might
in the first case. We're safe."
"We couldn't help ourselves! We were held up!" Alderman Murphy could not
restrain a joyous laugh, and he held out a red hairy hand. "Put 'er
there, Baxter! There was a time when I classed you with the rest o' the
reform bunch you stand with in politics--fit for nothin' but to wear
white kid gloves and to tell people how good you are. But say, you're
the smoothest article I've met yet!"
Baxter, with hardly concealed reluctance, placed his soft slender hand
in Murphy's oily paw.
Chapter XXIV
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS
It had been hard for Baxter to broach his plan to the Executive
Committee. The next step in the plan was far harder--to write the letter
to Foley. His revolted pride upreared itself against this act, but his
business sense forced him to go on with what he had begun. So he wrote
the letter--not an easy task of itself, since the letter had to be so
vague as to tell Foley nothing, and yet so luring as to secure his
presence--and sent it to Foley's house by messenger.
The next afternoon at a quarter past two the committee was again in
Baxter's office. Foley had been asked to come at half-past. The fifteen
minutes before his expected arrival they spent in rehearsing the plan,
so soon to be put to its severest test.
"I suppose you'll do all the talking, Baxter," said Bobbs.
"Sure," answered Murphy. "It's his game. I don't like to give in that
any man's better than me, but when it comes to fine work o' this kind we
ain't one, two, three with Baxter."
Baxter took the compliment with unchanged face.
Foley was not on time. At two-forty he had not come, and that he would
come at all began to be doubted. At two-fifty he had not arrived. At
three none of the four really expected him.
"Let's go," said Murphy. "He'd 'a' been here on time if he was comin' at
all. I ain't goin' to waste my time waitin' on any walkin' delegate."
"Perhaps there has been some mistake--perhaps he didn't get the letter,"
suggested Baxter. But his explanation did not satisfy himself; he had a
growing fear that he had humiliated himself in vain, that Foley had got
the letter and was laughing at him--a new humiliation greater even than
the first. "But let's wait a few minutes longer; he may come yet," he
went on; and after a little persuasion the three consented to remain
half an hour longer.
At quarter past three the office boy brought word that Foley was
without. Baxter ordered that he be sent in, but before the boy could
turn Foley walked through the open door, derby hat down over his eyes,
hands in his trousers pockets. Baxter stood up, and the other three rose
slowly after him.
"Good-afternoon, gents," Foley said carelessly, his eyes running rapidly
from face to face. "D'I keep youse waitin'?"
"Only about an hour," growled Murphy.
"Is that so, now? Sorry. I always take a nap after lunch, an' I
overslep' myself."
Foley's eyes had fixed upon Baxter's, and Baxter's returned their gaze.
For several seconds the two stood looking at each other with
expressionless faces, till the other three began to wonder. Then Baxter
seemed to swallow something. "Won't you please be seated, Mr. Foley," he
said.
"Sure," said Foley in his first careless tone.
The five sat down. Foley again coolly scanned the committee. "Well?" he
said.
The three looked at Baxter to open the conversation. He did not at once
begin, and Foley took out his watch. "I can only give youse a few
minutes, gents. I've got an engagement up town at four. So if there's
anything doin', s'pose we don't waste no time in silent prayer."
"We want to talk over the strike with you," began Baxter.
"Really. If I'd known that now I'd 'a' brought the committee along."
Murphy scowled at this naïveté. "We don't want to talk to your
committee."
"I'm nobody without the committee. The committee's runnin' the strike."
"We merely desire to talk things over in a general way with you in your
capacity as an individual," said Baxter quickly, to head off other
remarks from Murphy.
"A general talk? Huh! Youse talk two hours; result--youse've talked two
hours." He slowly rose and took his hat, covering a yawn with a bony
hand. "Interestin'. I'd like it if I had the time to spare. But I ain't.
Well--so-long."
"Hold on!" cried Baxter hastily. Foley turned. "We thought that
possibly, as the result of our talk, we might be able to reach some
compromise for the settlement of the strike."
"If youse've got any plans, that's different." Foley resumed his chair,
resting an elbow on the table.
"But remember I've got another engagement, an' cut 'em short."
There were five chairs in the room. Baxter had placed his own with its
back to the window, and Foley's so that the full light fell straight in
the walking delegate's face. His own face, in the shadow, was as though
masked.
Baxter had now immediately before him the task of opening the way for
Foley to make the desired demand. "This strike has been going on over
five weeks now," he began, watching the walking delegate's face for any
expression significant that his words were having their effect. "You
have been fixed in your position; we have been fixed in ours. Your union
has lost about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I won't say how
much we've lost. We both seem to be as firmly fixed in our determination
as ever. The strike may last all summer. The question is, do we both
want to keep on losing money--indefinitely?"
Foley did not take the opening. "That's the question," he said blandly.
It was a few seconds before Baxter went on. "I judge that we do not. You
have----"
"Excuse me," said Foley, rising, "but I got weak eyes, an' this light
hurts 'em. Suppose me an' youse changes chairs." He calmly stepped over
to Baxter's side and waited.
There was nothing for Baxter but to yield the seat, which he did. Foley
sat down, tilted back against the window sill, and hooked his heels over
a chair rung.
"Your union has perhaps a million dollars at stake," Baxter continued at
the same even pitch. "We have--a great deal, and the owners stand to
lose heavily. If by talking an hour we can devise a plan by which this
can be saved, it's worth while, is it not?"
"Sure. Speakin' as an individual, I'm willin' to talk twice as long for
half as much," Foley drawled.
There was a silence. The three men, their elbows on the polished table,
looked on as though spectators at a play.
"I wonder if you have anything to propose?" asked Baxter guardedly.
"Me? I come to use my ears, not my tongue."
The two men watched each other narrowly. The advantage, if there could
be advantage in the case of two faces under perfect control, was all
with Foley. The contractor had caught no sign revealing whether his
insinuative words were having effect.
"But you perhaps have thought of some plan that is worth considering,"
he went on.
Foley hesitated, for the first time. "Well--yes."
"What is it?"
"I----" He broke off, and seemed to listen with suspicion.
Baxter's face quickened--the least trifle. The three men leaned further
across the table, excitement tugging in their faces.
"You are perfectly safe," Baxter assured him. "No one can hear."
"The plan's dead simple. But mebbe it's occurred to youse."
"Go on!" said Baxter. The men hardly breathed.
"The quickest way o' settlin' the strike is for"--he paused--"youse
bosses to give in."
Baxter's face went a little pale. Something very like a snarl came from
the spectators.
Foley gave a prolonged chuckle. "If youse'll pay me for my time, I'm
willin' to play tag in the dark so long's the coin lasts. But if youse
ain't, come to business, or I'll go."
"I don't understand," returned Baxter blankly.
"Oh, tell the truth now an' then, Baxter. It sorter gives contrast to
the other things youse say. Youse understand all right enough."
Baxter continued his blank look.
Foley laughed dryly. "Now why do youse keep up that little game with me,
Baxter? But keep it up, if youse like it? It don't fool no one, so
where's the harm. I see through youse all right, even if youse don't
understand me."
"Yes?"
"Mebbe youse'd like to have me tell youse why youse sent for me?"
There was no answer.
"I'll tell then, since youse don't seem to want to. I only expect to
live till I'm seventy-five, so I ain't got no time to waste on your way
o' doin' business." Tilted at his ease against the window sill, he gave
each of the four a slow glance from his sharp eyes. "Well, youse gents
sent for me to see if I wouldn't offer to sell out the strike."
This was hardly the manner in which the four had expected he would be
led on to hold them up. There was a moment of suppressed
disconcertment. Then Baxter remarked: "It seems to me that you are doing
some very unwarranted guessing."
"I may be wrong, sure." A sardonic grin showed through the shadow-mask
on his face. "Well, what did youse want to talk to me about then?"
Again there was a pause. The three twisted in uncomfortable suspense.
Baxter had the control of a bronze. "Suppose that was our purpose?" he
asked quietly. "What would you say?"
"That's pretty fair; youse're gettin' out where there's daylight," Foley
approved. "I'd say youse was wastin' time. It can't be done--even if
anybody wanted it done."
"Why?"
"There's three thousand men in the union, an' every one o' them has a
say in settlin' the strike. An' there's five men on the strike
committee. I s'pose it's necessary to tell four such honest gents that a
trick o' this sort's got to be turned on the quiet. Where's the chance
for quiet? A committee might fool a union--yes. But there's the
committee."
Foley looked at his watch. "I've got to move if I keep that engagement."
He stood up, and a malignant look came over his face. "I've give youse
gents about the only sort of a reason youse're capable of
appreciatin'--I couldn't if I wanted to. But there's another--I don't
want to. The only way o' settlin' this strike is the one I said first,
for youse bosses to give in. I've swore to beat youse out, an', by God,
I'm goin' to do it!"
Bobbs and Isaac blinked dazedly. Murphy rose with a savage look, but
was sent to his chair by a glance from Baxter. Save for that glance,
Foley's words would have made no more change on Baxter's face than had
it indeed been of bronze.
"When youse're ready to give in, gents, send for me, an' I'll come
again. Till then, damn youse, good-by!"
As his hand was on the knob Baxter's even voice reached him: "But
suppose a man could fool the committee?"
Foley turned slowly around. "What?"
"Suppose a man could fool the committee?"
"What youse drivin' at?"
"Suppose a man could fool the committee?"
Foley's eyes were of blazing intentness. "It can't be done."
"I know of only one man who could do it."
"Who?"
"I think you can guess his name."
Foley came slowly back to his chair, with a gaze that fairly clutched
Baxter's face. "Don't youse fool with me!" he snarled.
Baxter showed nothing of the angler's excitement who feels the fish on
his hook. "Suppose a man could fool the committee? What would you say?"
Foley held his eyes in piercing study on Baxter's face. "See here, are
youse talkin' business?" he demanded.
"Suppose I say I am."
The shadow could not hide a wolf-like gleam of Foley's yellow teeth.
"Then I might say, 'I'll listen.'"
"Suppose a man could fool the committee," Baxter reiterated. "What would
you say?"
"S'pose I was to say, 'how'?"
Baxter felt sure of his catch. Throwing cautious speech aside, he
outlined the plan of his business sense, Foley watching him the while
with unshifting gaze, elbows on knees, hands gripped. "Negotiations
between your committee and ours might be resumed. You might be defiant
for one or two meetings of the two committees. You might still be
defiant in the meetings, but you might begin to drop a few words of
doubt on the outside. They will spread, and have their effect. You can
gradually grow a little weaker in your declarations at the meetings and
a little stronger in your doubts expressed outside. Some things might
happen, harmless in themselves, which would weaken the union's cause.
Then you might begin to say that perhaps after all it would be better to
go back to work on the old scale now, than to hold out with the
possibility of having to go back at the old scale anyhow after having
lost a summer's work. And so on. In three weeks, or even less, you would
have the union in a mood to declare the strike off."
Foley's gaze dropped to the rug, and the four waited his decision in
straining suspense. The walking delegate's mind quickly ran over all the
phases of this opportunity for a fortune. None of the four men present
would tell of the transaction, since, if they did, they would be
blackened by their own words. To the union and all outside persons it
would seem nothing more than a lost strike. The prestige he would lose
in the union would be only temporary; he could regain it in the course
of time. Other walking delegates had lost strikes and kept their places
as leaders.
Even Baxter had begun to show signs of nervous strain when Foley raised
his eyes and looked hesitatingly at the three men. Every man was one
more mouth, so one more danger.
"What is it?" asked Baxter.
"I ain't used to doin' business with more'n one man."
"Oh, we're all on the level," growled Murphy. "Come out with it."
"Well, then, I say yes--with an 'if'."
"And the 'if'?" queried Baxter.
"If the price is right."
"What do you think it should be?"
Foley studied the men's faces from beneath lowered eyebrows. "Fifty
thousand."
This was the sum Baxter had mentioned the afternoon before. But Isaacs
cried out, "What!"
"That--or nothing!"
"Half that's enough," declared Murphy.
Foley sneered in Murphy's face. "As I happen to know, twenty-five
thousand is just what youse got for workin' in the Board o' Aldermen for
the Lincoln Avenue Traction Franchise. Good goods always comes higher."
The alderman's red face paled to a pink. But Baxter cut in before he
could retort. "We won't haggle over the amount, Mr. Foley. I think we
can consider the sum you mention as agreed upon."
Foley's yellow teeth gleamed again. He summed up his terms concisely:
"Fifty thousand, then. Paid in advance. No checks. Cash only."
"Pay you in advance!" snorted Murphy. "Well I rather guess not!"
"Why?"
"Well--we want somethin' for our money!"
Foley's face grew dark. "See here, gents. We've done a little quiet
business together, all of us. Now can any one o' youse say Buck Foley
ever failed to keep his part o' the agreement?"
The four had to vindicate his honor. But nevertheless, for their own
reason, they seemed unwilling to pay now and trust that he would do the
work; and Foley, for his reason, seemed unwilling to do the work and
trust that they would pay. After much discussion a compromise was
reached: the money was to be paid by Baxter in the morning of the day on
which the union would vote upon the strike; the committee could then
feel certain that Foley would press his measure through, for he would
have gone too far to draw back; and Foley, if payment should not be
made, could still balk the fulfillment of the plan.
When this agreement had been reached Baxter was ready with another
point. "I believe it would be wise if all our future dealings with Mr.
Foley should be in the open, especially my dealings with him. If we were
seen coming from an apparently secret meeting, and recognized--as we
might be, for we are both known to many people--suspicions might be
aroused and our plan defeated."
The four gave approval to the suggestion.
At five o'clock all was settled, and Foley rose to go. He looked
irresolutely at Baxter for a moment, then said in a kind of grudging
admiration: "I've never give youse credit, Baxter. I knew youse was the
smoothest thing in the contractin' business, but I never guessed youse
was this deep."
For an instant Baxter had a fear that he would again have to shake a
great hairy hand. But Foley's tribute did not pass beyond words.
Chapter XXV
IN WHICH FOLEY BOWS TO DEFEAT
The minute after Foley had gone Mr. Baxter was talking over the
telephone to the secretary of the Conciliation Committee of the Civic
Federation. "We have considered your offer to try to bring our committee
and the committee of the ironworkers together," he said. "We are willing
to reopen negotiations with them." A letter would have been the proper
and more dignified method of communication. But this was the quicker,
and to Mr. Baxter a day was worth while.
The secretary believed in the high mission of his committee, and was
enthusiastic to make a record for it in the avoidance of strikes and
assistance in their settlement. So he laid down the telephone receiver
and called for a stenographer. Within twenty minutes a messenger left
his office bearing a letter to Foley.
When Foley got home, an hour after leaving Mr. Baxter's office, his wife
handed him the letter. It read:
MY DEAR MR. FOLEY:
Mr. Baxter, speaking for the Executive Committee of the Iron
Employers' Association, has signified their willingness to meet your
committee and again discuss possible measures for the ending of the
strike. Notwithstanding the barrenness of previous meetings I
sincerely hope your committee will show the same willingness to
resume negotiations. Permit me to urge upon your attention the
extreme seriousness of the present situation: the union, the
contractors, the owners, all losing money, the public discommoded by
the delay in the completion of buildings; all these demand that your
two committees get together and in a spirit of fairness reach some
agreement whereby the present situation will be brought to an end.
Our rooms are at the service of your two committees. As time is
precious I have secured Mr. Baxter's consent, for his committee, to
meet you here at half-past two to-morrow afternoon. I hope this will
suit you. If not, a later date can be arranged.
Though his appetite and dinner were both ready, Foley put on his hat and
went to the home of Connelly. The secretary was just sitting down to his
own dinner.
"I just happened to be goin' by," said Foley, "an' I thought I'd run in
an' show youse a letter I got to-day." He drew out the letter and handed
it to Connelly.
Foley chatted with Mrs. Connelly while the letter was being read, but
all the time his eyes were watching its effect upon Connelly. When he
saw the end had been reached, he remarked: "It don't amount to nothin'.
I guess we might as well write 'em to go to hell."
Connelly hesitated. It usually took more than a little courage to
express a view contrary to Foley's. "I don't know," he said doubtfully.
"Baxter knows how we stand. It strikes me if he offers to talk things
over with us, that means he realizes he's licked an' is willin' to make
concessions."
"Um! Maybe youse're right."
Encouraged by this admission Connelly went on: "It might be worth our
while to meet 'em, anyhow. Suppose nothin' does come of it, what have we
lost?"
Foley looked half-convinced. "Well, mebbe our committee might as well
talk the letter over."
"Sure thing."
"I suppose then we ought to get together to-night. If we get word to the
other three boys, we've got to catch 'em at dinner. Can youse see to
that?"
Connelly looked regretfully at his untasted meal. "I guess I can."
"All right. In your office then, say at eight."
The five men were in the office on time, though Connelly, to make it,
had to content himself with what he could swallow in a few minutes at a
quick lunch counter. The office was a large, square room, a desk in one
corner, a few chairs along the sides, a great cuspidor in the center; at
the windows were lace curtains, and on one wall was a full-length mirror
in a gilt frame--for on nights when Potomac Hall was let for weddings,
receptions, and balls, Connelly's office had over its door, "Ladies'
Dressing Room."
The five men lit cigars, Foley's cigars, and drew chairs around the
cuspidor, which forthwith began to bear the relation of hub to their
frequent salivary spokes. "Connelly told youse about the letter from the
Civic Federation, that's gettin' so stuck on runnin' God's business
they'll soon have him chased off his job," Foley began. "But I guess I
might as well read the letter to youse."
"Take the offer, o' course!" declared Pete, when Foley had ended.
"That's what I said," Connelly joined.
Hogan and Brown, knowing how opposed Foley was to the proposition, said
nothing.
"We've wasted enough time on the bosses' committee," Foley objected. "No
use talkin' to 'em again till we've put 'em down an' out."
"The trouble with you, Foley, is, you like a fight so well you can't
tell when you've licked your man," said Pete in an exasperated tone.
"What's the use punchin' a man after he's give in?"
"We've got 'em licked, or they'd never ask to talk things over," urged
Connelly.
Foley looked in scowling meditation at his cigar ash. Then he raised his
eyes to Brown and Hogan. "What do youse think?"
Thus directly questioned; they had to admit they stood with Pete and
Connelly.
"Oh, well, since we ain't workin', I suppose we won't be wastin' much if
we do chin a bit with 'em," he conceded. But the four easily perceived
that he merely yielded to their majority, did not agree.
The next afternoon Foley and his committee were led by the secretary of
the Conciliation Committee into one of the rooms of the Civic
Federation's suite, where Mr. Baxter and his committee were already in
waiting. The secretary expressed a hope that they arrive at an
understanding, and withdrew in exultation over this example of the
successful work his committee was doing.
There was a new member on the employers' committee--Mr. Berman. Mr.
Baxter, exercising the power vested in him to fill vacancies
temporarily, had chosen Mr. Berman as Mr. Driscoll's successor for two
reasons: his observations of Mr. Berman had made him certain the latter
had elastic ideas; and, more important, for Mr. Driscoll's own partner
to take the vacant place would quiet all suspicions as to the cause of
Mr. Driscoll's unexpected resignation. Of the five, Bobbs and Isaacs
were rather self-conscious; Murphy, who had had previous experience in
similar situations, wore a large, blustering manner; Berman, for all his
comparative inexperience, was most promisingly at his ease; and Baxter
was the Baxter he was three hundred and sixty-five days in the year.
The strikers' committee presented the confident front of expected
victory. Foley, slipped far down in his chair, eyed the contractors with
a sideling, insolent glance.
"If this here's to be another o' them hot air festivals, like we
attended in April an' May, say so now," he growled. "We ain't got no
time for talkin' unless youse mean business."
Connelly, whose chair was beside Foley's, leaned over anxiously. "Don't
you think you're goin' at 'em pretty rough, Buck?" he whispered. "If you
get 'em mad, they'll go right back to where they stood."
"Oh, youse leave 'em to me," Foley returned knowingly.
It would serve no purpose to give the details of this meeting. Mr.
Baxter, ignoring Foley's insolence of manner, outlined in well-balanced
sentences the reasons that made it imperative to both sides for the
strike to be settled, and then went on to give anew the contractors'
side of the questions at issue. Now and then Foley broke in with
comments which were splenetic outbursts rather than effective
rejoinders. When the meeting was over and his committee was out in the
street, Foley shed his roughly defiant manner. "Boys," he said with
quiet confidence, "we've got 'em beat to death."
The next afternoon was occupied with a debate between Mr. Baxter and
Foley upon their respective claims. Foley's tongue was as sharp as ever,
but his fellow committeemen had to acknowledge to their secret hearts
there was more of convincing substance in what Mr. Baxter said. They
wondered somewhat at the sudden declension in the effectiveness of their
leader's speech, which perhaps they would not have done had they been
parties to a conference that morning at which Foley had pointed out to
Mr. Baxter the vulnerable spots in the union's claims, and schooled him
in the most telling replies to the statements he, Foley, intended
making.
After the meeting Foley again declared his certainty of winning, but
there was a notable decrease of confidence in his voice.
"Yes," said Connelly, without much spirit. "But Baxter, he puts up a
good talk."
"He seems to have facts to talk from," explained Brown.
"So have we," said Foley.
"Yes, but somehow at the meetin's his facts seem stronger," said
Connelly.
"Oh, what o' that," Foley returned encouragingly. "More'n once in poker
I've seen a strong bluff win over a strong hand."
The next meeting was a repetition of the second. Foley was keen in his
wit, and insolently defiant; but Mr. Baxter got the better of every
argument. The union's committee began to admit, each man to himself,
that their position was weaker, and the contractors' much stronger, than
they had thought.
And so, day by day, Foley continued to undermine their confidence. So
skillfully did he play his part, they never guessed that he was the
insinuating cause of their failing courage; more, his constant
encouragement made them ashamed to speak of their sinking spirit.
But on the fifth day, at a consultation in Connelly's office, it came
out. There had been an hour of talk, absolutely without a touch of
enthusiasm, when Connelly, who had been looking around at the men's
faces for some time, said with an effort: "On the level now, boys, d'you
think we've got any chance o' winnin'?"
Foley swore. "What's that?" he demanded. "Why o' course we're goin' to
win!"
But Connelly's words had their effect; the silence broken, the men spoke
hesitatingly of the growing doubts they had been trying to hide. Foley
stood up. "Boys, if youse're goin' to talk this kind o' rot, youse've
got to talk it without me," he said, and went out.
Foley gone, they spoke freely of their doubts; and they also talked of
him. "D'you notice how the ring's all gone out o' his voice?" asked
Brown.
"I bet he ain't got no more confidence than any o' the rest of us," said
Pete.
"I bet so, too," agreed Connelly. "He talks big just to cheer us up.
Then it's mighty hard for Buck to give up. He'll always fight to his
last drop o' blood."
The decline of the committee's enthusiasm had already begun to have a
disquieting effect in the union. It now rapidly spread that the
committee had little confidence of winning the strike, and that Foley,
for all his encouraging words, believed at heart as did the rest of the
committee.
The first meeting of the union after the resumption of negotiations was
a bitter one. The committee made a vague report, in which Foley did not
join, that made apparent their fallen courage. Immediately questioning
men were on their feet all over the hall, Tom among them. The committee,
cornered by queries, had to admit publicly that it had no such
confidence as it had had a week before. The reasons for this were
demanded. No more definite reason could be given than that the bosses
were stronger in their position than the union had believed.
There were sneers and hot words for the four members who participated in
the report. Cries went up for Foley, who had thus far kept out of the
discussion; and one voice, answering the cries, shouted: "Oh, he's lost
his nerve, too, the same as the others!"
Foley was on his feet in an instant, looking over the excited crowd. "If
any man here has heard me say I'm for givin' in, let him get up on his
two feet!"
No one stood up. "I guess youse all know I'm for fightin' as long's
there's anything worth fightin' for," he declared, and sank back into
his seat.
But there had been no wrath in his eyes as he had looked over the crowd,
and no ferocity in his words of vindication. The whisper ran about that
it was true, he was losing his nerve. And if Foley, Foley the fighter,
were losing confidence, then the situation must indeed be desperate.
The courage of a large body of men, especially of one loosely organized,
is the courage of its leaders. Now that it was known the committee's
confidence was well-nigh gone, and guessed that Foley's was going, the
courage of the men ebbed rapidly. It began to be said: "If there's no
chance of winning the strike, why don't we settle it at once, and get
back to work?" And the one who spoke loudest and most often in this
strain was Johnson.
Two days after the meeting Foley had a conference with Mr. Baxter, at
which the other members of the union's committee were not present. And
that same night there was another explosion in one of Mr. Baxter's
buildings that chanced to be unguarded. The explosion was slight, and
small damage was done, but a search discovered two charges of dynamite
in the foundation, with fuses burned almost to the fulminating caps.
If the dynamite did not explode, the newspapers did. The perpetrators of
this second outrage, which only fate had prevented, should be hunted
down and made such an example of as would be an eternal warning against
like atrocities. The chief of police should apprehend the miscreants at
whatever cost, and the district attorney should see that they had full
justice--and perhaps a little more.
The chief of police, for his part, declared he'd have the guilty parties
if it took his every man to run them down. But his men searched, days
passed, and the waiting cells remained empty.
Mr. Baxter, interviewed, said it was obvious that the union was now
determined to stop at nothing in its efforts to drive the contractors
into submission. The union, at a special meeting, disclaimed any
responsibility for the attempted outrage, and intimated that this was a
scheme of the contractors themselves to blacken the union's character.
When a reporter "conveyed this intelligence to Mr. Baxter, that
gentleman only smiled."
The chief result of this second explosion was that so much as remained
to the union of public sympathy was lost in what time it took the public
to read its morning paper. Had a feeling of confidence prevailed in the
union, instead of one of growing doubt, this charge might have incited
the union to resistance all the stouter. But the union, dispirited over
the weakness of its cause, saw its cause had been yet further weakened,
and its courage fled precipitately.
Three days after the explosion there was another joint meeting of the
two committees. At this Mr. Baxter, who had before been soft courtesy,
was all ultimatum. The explosion had decided them. They would not be
intimidated; they would not make a single concession. The union could
return to work on the old terms, if it liked; if not, they would fight
till there was nothing more to fight with, or for.
Foley, with much bravado, gave ultimatum for ultimatum; but when his
committee met, immediately after leaving the employers', to consider Mr.
Baxter's proposition, he sat in gloomy silence, hardly heeding what was
being said. As they talked they turned constantly to Foley's somber
face, and looking at that face their words became more and more
discouraged.
Finally Pete asked of him: "Where d'you stand, Buck?"
He came out of his reverie with a start. "I'm against givin' up," he
said. "Somethin' may turn up yet."
"What's the use holdin' on?" demanded Connelly. "We're bound to be
licked in the end. Every day we hold out the men lose a day's pay."
Foley glanced sadly about. "Is that what youse all think?"
There were four affirmative answers.
"Well, I ain't goin' to stand out----"
He broke off, and his face fell forward into his palm, and he was silent
for a long space. The four watched him in wordless sympathy.
"Boys," he said, huskily, into his hand, "this's the first time Buck
Foley's ever been licked."
Chapter XXVI
PETERSEN'S SIN
The first news of the committee's failing confidence that reached Tom's
ears he discredited as being one of the rumors that are always flying
about when large powers are vested in a small body of men. That the
strike could fail was too preposterous for his belief. But when the
committee was forced to admit in open meeting that its courage was
waning, Tom, astounded, had to accept what but yesterday he had
discredited. He thought immediately of treachery on Foley's part, but in
his hot remarks to the union he made no mention of his suspicions; he
knew the boomerang quality of an accusation he could not prove. Later,
when he went over the situation with cool brain, he saw that treachery
was impossible. Granting even that Foley could be bought, there was the
rest of the committee,--and Pete, on whose integrity he would have
staked his own, was one of its members.
And yet, for all that reason told him, a vague and large suspicion
persisted in his mind. A few days after the meeting he had a talk with
Pete, during which his suspicion got into words. "Has it occurred to
you, Pete, that maybe Foley is up to some deep trick?" he asked.
"You're away off, Tom!" was the answer, given with some heat. "I ain't
missed a single committee meetin', an' I know just where Foley stands.
It's the rest of us that're sorter peterin' out. Buck's the only one
that's standin' out for not givin' in. Mebbe he's not above dumpin' us
all if he had the chance. But he couldn't be crooked here even if he
wanted to. We're too many watchin' him."
All this Tom had said to himself before, but his saying it had not
dispelled his suspicion, and no more did the saying of it now by Pete.
The negotiations seemed all open and above board; he could not lay his
finger on a single flaw in them. But yet the strike seemed to him to
have been on too solid a basis to have thus collapsed without apparent
cause.
At the union meeting following the committee conference where Foley had
yielded, a broken man, the advisability of abandoning the strike came up
for discussion. Foley sat back in his chair, with overcast face, and
refused to speak. But his words to the committee had gone round, and now
his gloomy silence was more convincing in its discouragement than any
speech could have been. Tom, whose mind could not give up the suspicion
that there was trickery, even though he could not see it, had a
despairing thought that if action could be staved off time might make
the flaw apparent. He frantically opposed the desire of a portion of the
members that the strike be given up that very evening. Their defeat was
not difficult; the union was not yet ready for the step. It was decided
that the matter should come up for a vote at the following meeting.
While Tom was at breakfast the next morning there was a knock at the
door. Maggie answered it, and he heard a thin yet resonant voice that
he seemed to have heard before, inquire: "Is Mr. Keating in?"
He stepped to the door. In the dim hallway he saw indistinctly a small,
thin woman with a child in her arms. "Yes," he answered for himself.
"Don't you remember me, Brother Keating?" she asked, with a glad note in
her voice, shifting the child higher on her breast and holding out a
hand.
"Mrs. Petersen!" he cried. "Come right in."
She entered, and Tom introduced her to Maggie, who drew a chair for her
up beside the breakfast table.
"Thank you, sister." She sank exhausted into the chair, and turned
immediately on Tom. "Have you seen Nels lately?" she asked eagerly.
"Not for more than two weeks."
The excitement died out of her face; Tom now saw, by the light of the
gas that had to be burned in the dining-room even at midday, that the
face was drawn and that there were dark rings under the eyes. "Is
anything wrong?" he asked.
"He ain't been home for two nights," she returned tremulously. "I said
to myself last night, if he don't come to-night I'll come over to see
you early this morning. Mebbe you'd know something about him."
"Not a thing." He wanted to lighten that wan face, so he gave the best
cheer that he could. "But I guess nothing's wrong with him."
"Yes, there is, or he'd never stay away like this," she returned
quickly. Her voice sank with resignation. "I suppose all I can do is to
pray."
"And look," Tom added. "I'll look."
She rose to go. Maggie pressed her to have breakfast, but she refused, a
faint returning hope in her eyes. "Mebbe the Lord's brung him home while
I've been here."
A half minute after the door had closed upon her Tom opened it and
hurried down the three flights of stairs. He caught her just going into
the street.
He fumbled awkwardly in his pocket. "Do you need anything?"
"No. Bless you, Brother Keating. Nels left me plenty o' money. You know
he works reg'lar on the docks."
Two causes for Petersen's absence occurred as possible to Tom--arrest
and death. He looked through the record of arrests for the last two days
at police headquarters. Petersen's name was not there, and to give a
false name would never have occurred to Petersen's slow mind. So Tom
knew he was not in a cell. He visited the public morgues and followed
attendants who turned back sheets from cold faces. But Petersen's face
he did not see.
The end of the day brought also the end of Tom's search. He now had
three explanations for Petersen's absence: The Swede was dead, and his
body unrecovered; he had wandered off in a fit of mental aberration; he
had deserted his wife. The first he did not want to believe. The third,
remembering the looks that had passed between the two the night he had
visited their home, he could not believe. He clung to the second; and
that was the only one he mentioned to Mrs. Petersen when he called in
the evening to report.
"He'll come to suddenly, and come back," he encouraged her. "That's the
way with such cases."
"You think so?" She brightened visibly.
A fourth explanation flashed upon him. "Perhaps he got caught by
accident on some boat he had been helping load, and got carried away."
She brightened a little more at this. "Just so he's alive!" she cried.
"He'll be certain to be back in a few days," Tom said positively. He
left her greatly comforted by his words, though he himself did not half
believe them.
There was nothing more he could do toward discovering the missing man.
It must be admitted that, during the next few days, he thought of
Petersen much less frequently than was the due of such a friend as the
Swede had proved. The affairs of the union held his mind exclusively.
Opinion was turning overwhelmingly toward giving up the strike, and
giving it up immediately. Wherever there was a man who still held out,
there were three or four men pouring words upon him. "Foley may not be
so honest as to hurt him, but he's a fighter from 'way back, an' if he
thinks we ought to stop fightin' now, then we ought to 'a' stopped weeks
ago"--such was the substance of the reasoning in bar-room and street
that converted many a man to yielding.
And also, Tom learned, a quick settlement was being urged at home. As
long as the men had stood firm for the strike, the women had skimped at
every point and supported that policy. But when they discovered that the
men's courage was going, the women, who feel most the fierce economy of
a strike, were for the straight resumption of work and income. Maggie,
Tom knew, was beginning to look forward in silent eagerness to a
settlement; he guessed that she hoped, the strike ended, he might go
back to work untroubled by Foley.
Tom undertook to stand out against the proposal of submission, but he
might as well have tried to shoulder back a Fundy tide. Men remembered
it was he who had so hotly urged them into a strike that thus far had
cost them seven weeks' wages. "I suppose you'd have us lose seven more
weeks' money," they sneered at him. They said other things, and
stronger, for your ironworker has studied English in many places.
Monday evening found Tom in a chair at one of the open windows of his
sitting-room, staring out at nothing at all, hardly conscious of Maggie,
who was reading, or of Ferdinand, who lay dozing on the couch. He was
completely discouraged--at the uttermost end of things. He had searched
his mind frantically for flaws in the negotiations and in Foley's
conduct, flaws which, if followed up, clue by clue, would reveal Foley's
suspected treachery. But he found none. There seemed nothing more he
could do. The vote would come on Wednesday evening, and its result was
as certain as if the count had already been made.
And so he sat staring into the line of back yards with their rows and
rows of lighted windows. His mind moved over the past five months. They
had held nothing for him but failure and pain. He had fought for honor
in the management of the union's affairs, staking his place in his trade
on the result--and honor in the contest with dishonesty had gone down in
defeat. He had urged the union to strike for better wages, and now the
strike was on the eve of being lost. He would have to begin life over
anew, and he did not know where he could begin. Moreover, he had lost
all but a few friends; and he had lost all influence. This was what his
fight for right had brought him, and in five months.
And this was not the sum of the bitterness the five months had brought
him--no, nor its greater part. He had learned how mighty real love can
be--and how hopeless!
He had been sitting so, dreaming darkly, for an hour or more when Maggie
asked him if he had heard whether Petersen had come back. The question
brought to his mind that he had neglected Mrs. Petersen for four days.
He rose, conscience-smitten, told Maggie he would be back presently, and
set forth for the tenement in which the Petersens had their home. He
found Mrs. Petersen, her child asleep in her lap, reading the Bible. She
appeared to be even slighter and paler than when he had last seen her,
but her spirit seemed to burn even higher through the lessened
obscuration of her thinning flesh.
No, Petersen had not yet come back. "But I fetched my trouble to God in
prayer," she said. "An' He helped me, glory to His name! He told me Nels
is comin' back."
Tom had nothing to give to one so fired by hope, and he slipped away as
soon as he could and returned home. On entering his flat, his eyes going
straight through the dining-room into the sitting-room, he saw Maggie
gazing in uncomfortable silence at a man--a lean, brown man, with knobby
face, and wing-like mustache, who sat with bony hands in his lap and
eyes fastened on his knees.
Tom crossed the dining-room with long strides. Maggie, glad of the
chance to escape, passed into the bedroom.
"Petersen!" he cried. "Where on earth've you been?"
Petersen rose with a glad light in his face and grasped the hand Tom
offered. Immediately he disengaged his hand to slip it into a trousers
pocket. Tom now noted that Petersen's face was slightly discolored,--dim
yellows, and greens, and blues--and that his left thumb was brown, as
though stained with arnica.
"I come to pay vot I loan," Petersen mumbled. His hand came forth from
the pocket grasping a roll of bills as big as his wrist. He unwrapped
three tens and silently held them out.
Tom, who had watched this action through with dumb amazement, now broke
out: "Where d'you get all that money? Where've you been?"
The three tens were still in Petersen's outstretched hand. "For vot you
give de union, and vot you give me."
"But where've you been?" Tom demanded, taking the money.
Fear, shame, and contrition struggled for control of Petersen's face.
But he answered doggedly: "I vorked at de docks."
"You know that's not so, Petersen. You haven't been home for a week. And
your wife's scared half to death."
"Anna scared? Vy?" He started, and his brown face paled.
"Why shouldn't she be?" Tom returned wrathfully. "You went off without a
word to her, and not a word from you for a week! Now see here, Petersen,
where've you been?"
"Vorkin' at de docks," he repeated, but weakly.
"And got that wad of money for it! Hardly." He pushed Petersen firmly
back into his chair. "Now you've got to tell me all about it."
All the dogged resistance faded from Petersen's manner, and he sat
trembling, with face down. For a moment Tom was in consternation lest he
break into tears. But he controlled himself and in shame told his story,
aided by questions from Tom. Tom heard him without comment, breathing
rapidly and gulping at parts of the brokenly-told story.
When the account was ended Tom gripped Petersen's hand. "You're all
right, Petersen!" he said huskily.
Tears trickled down from Petersen's eyes, and his simple face twitched
with remorse.
Tom fell into thought. He understood Petersen's fear to face his wife.
He, too, was uncertain how Mrs. Petersen, in her religious fervor, would
regard what Petersen had done. He had to tell her, of course, since
Petersen had shown he could not. But how should he tell her--how, so
that the woman, and not the religious enthusiast, would be reached?
Presently Tom handed Petersen his hat, and picked up his own. "Come on,"
he said; and to Maggie he called through the bedroom door: "I'll be back
in an hour."
As they passed through the tunnel Tom, who had slipped his hand through
Petersen's arm for guidance, felt the Swede begin to tremble; and it was
so across the little stone-paved court, with the square of stars above,
and up the nervous stairway, whose February odors had been multiplied by
the June warmth. Before his own door Petersen held back.
Tom understood. "Wait here for me, then," he said, and knocked upon the
door.
"Who's there?" an eager voice questioned.
"Keating."
When she answered, the eagerness in the voice had turned to
disappointment. "All right, Brother Keating. In just a minute."
Tom heard the sounds of rapid dressing, and then a hand upon the knob.
Petersen shrank back into the darkness of a corner.
The door opened. "Come in, Brother Keating," she said, not quite able to
hide her surprise at this second visit in one evening.
A coal oil lamp on the kitchen table revealed the utter barrenness and
the utter cleanness--so far as unmonied effort could make clean those
scaling walls and that foot-hollowed floor--which he had seen on his
first visit five months before. He was hardly within the door when her
quick eyes caught the strain in his manner. One thin hand seized his
arm excitedly. "What is it, brother? Have you heard from Nels?"
"Ye-es," Tom admitted hesitatingly. He had not planned to begin the
story so.
"And he's alive? Quick! He's alive?"
"Yes."
She sank into a chair, clasped both hands over her heart, and turned her
eyes upward. "Praise the Lord! I thank Thee, Lord! I knew Thou wouldst
keep him."
Immediately her wide, burning eyes were back on Tom. "Where is he?"
"He's been very wicked," said Tom, shaking his head sadly, and lowering
himself into the only other chair. "So wicked he's afraid you can never
forgive him. And I don't see how you can. He's afraid to come home."
"God forgives everything to the penitent, an' I try to follow after
God," she said, trembling. A sickening fear was on her face. "Tell me,
brother! What's he done? Don't try to spare me! God will help me to bear
it. Not--not--murder?"
"No. He's fallen in another way," Tom returned, with the sad shake of
his head again. "Shall I tell you all?"
"All, brother! An' quickly!" She leaned toward him, hands gripped in the
lap of her calico wrapper, with such a staring, fearing attention as
seemed to stand out from her gray face and be of itself a separate
presence.
"I'll have to tell you some things you know already, and know better
than I do," Tom said, watching to see how his words worked upon her.
"After Petersen got in the union he held a job for two weeks. Then Foley
knocked him out, and then came the strike. It's been eleven weeks since
he earned a cent at his trade. The money he'd made in the two weeks he
worked soon gave out. He tried to find work and couldn't. Days passed,
and weeks. They had little to eat at home. I guess they had a pretty
hard time of it. He----"
"We did, brother!"
"He saw his wife and kid falling off--getting weaker and weaker," Tom
went on, not heeding the interruption. "He got desperate; he couldn't
see 'em starve. Now the devil always has temptation ready for a
desperate man. About four weeks ago when his wife was so weak she could
hardly move, and there wasn't a bite in the house, the devil tempted
Petersen. He happened to meet a man who had been his partner in his old
wicked days, his manager when he was a prize fighter. The manager said
it was too bad Petersen had left the ring; he was arranging a
heavy-weight bout to come off before a swell athletic club in
Philadelphia, a nice purse for the loser and a big fat one for the
winner. They walked along the street together for awhile, and all the
time the devil was tempting Petersen, saying to him: 'Go in and
fight--this once. It's right for a man to do anything rather than let
his wife and kid starve.' But Petersen held out, getting weaker all the
time, though. Then the devil said to him: 'He's a pretty poor sort of a
man that loves his promise not to fight more than he loves his wife and
kid.' Petersen fell. He decided to commit the sin."
Tom paused an instant, then added in a hard voice: "But because a man
loves his wife so much he's willing to do anything for her, that don't
excuse the sin, does it?"
"Go on!" she entreated, leaning yet further toward him.
"Well, he said to the manager he'd fight. They settled it, and the man
advanced some money. Petersen went into training. But he was afraid to
tell us what an awful thing he was doing,--doing because he didn't want
his wife to starve,--and so he told us he was working at the docks. So
it was for three weeks, and his wife and kid had things to eat. The
fight came off last Wednesday night----"
"And who won? Who?"
"Well--Petersen."
"Yes! Of course!" she cried, exultation for the moment possessing her
face. "He is a terrible fighter! He----"
She broke off and bowed her head with sudden shame; when it came up the
next instant she wore again the tense look that seemed the focus of her
being.
Tom had gone right on. "It was a hard fight. He was up against a fast
hard hitter. But he fought better than he ever did before. I suppose he
was thinking of his wife and kid. He won, and got the big purse. But
after the fight was over, he didn't dare come home. His face was so
bruised his wife would have known he'd been fighting,--and he knew it
would break her heart for her to know he'd been at it again. And so he
thought he'd stay away till his face got well. She needn't ever have the
pain then of knowing how he'd sinned. He never even thought how worried
she'd be at not hearing from him. So he stayed away till his face got
well, almost--till to-night. Then he came back, and slipped up to his
door. He wanted to come in, but he was still afraid. He listened at the
door. His wife was praying for him, and one thing he heard was, she
asked God to keep him wherever he was from wrong-doing. He knew then
he'd have to tell her all about it, and he knew how terrible his sin
would seem to her. He knew she could never forgive him. So he slipped
down the stairs, and went away. Of course he was right about what his
wife would think," Tom drove himself on with implacable voice. "I didn't
come here to plead for him. I don't blame you. It was a terrible sin, a
sin----"
She rose tremblingly from her chair, and raised a thin authoritative
hand. "Stop right there, brother!" she cried, her voice sob-broken. "It
wasn't a sin. It--it was glorious!"
Tom sprang toward the door. "Petersen!" he shouted. He flung it open,
and the next instant dragged Petersen, shrinking and eager, fearful,
shamefaced, and yet glowing, into the room.
"Oh, Nels!" She rushed into his arms, and their mighty length tightened
about the frail body. "It--was--glorious--Nels! It----"
But Tom heard no more. He closed the door and groped down the shivering
stairway.
Chapter XXVII
THE THOUSANDTH CHANCE
Mr. Driscoll was the chairman of the building committee of a little
independent church whose membership was inclined to regard him somewhat
dubiously, notwithstanding the open liking of the pastor. The church was
planning a new home, and of late the committee had been holding frequent
meetings. In the afternoon of this same Monday there had been a session
of the committee; and on leaving the pastor's study Mr. Driscoll had
hurried to his office, but Ruth, whom he had pressed into service as the
committee's secretary, had stopped to perform a number of errands. When
she reached the office she walked through the open hall door--the
weather was warm, so it had been wide all day--over the noiseless rug to
her desk, and began to remove her hat. Voices came to her from Mr.
Driscoll's room, Mr. Driscoll's voice and Mr. Berman's; but their first
few sentences, on business matters, passed her ears unheeded, like the
thousand noises of the street. But presently, after a little pause, Mr.
Berman remarked upon a new topic: "Well, it's the same as settled that
the strike will be over in two days."
Almost unconsciously Ruth's ears began to take in the words, though she
continued tearing the sheets of stamps, one of her purchases, into
strips, preparatory to putting them away.
"Another case in which right prevails," said Mr. Driscoll, a touch of
sarcasm in his voice.
"Why, yes. We are altogether in the right."
"And so we win." Silence. Then, abruptly, and with more sarcasm: "But
how much are we paying Foley?"
Ruth started, as when amid the street's thousand noises one's own name
is called out. She gazed intently at the door, which was slightly ajar.
Silence. "What? You know that?"
"Why do you suppose I left the committee?"
"I believed what you said, that you were tired of it."
"Um! So they never told you. Since you're a member of the committee I'm
breaking no pledge in telling you where I stand. I left when they
proposed buying Foley----"
Mr. Berman made a hushing sound.
"Nobody'll hear. Miss Arnold's out. Besides, I wouldn't mind much if
somebody did hear, and give the whole scheme away. How you men can stand
for it is more than I know."
"Oh, it's all right," Mr. Berman returned easily.
The talk went on, but Ruth listened for no more. She hastily pinned on
her hat, passed quietly into the hall, and caught a descending elevator.
After a walk about the block she came back to the office and moved
around with all the legitimate noise she could make. Mr. Driscoll's door
softly closed.
In a few minutes Mr. Berman came out and, door knob in hand, regarded
her a moment as she sat at her desk making a pretense of being at work.
Then he crossed the room with a rare masculine grace and bent above her.
"Miss Arnold," he said.
Ruth rarely took dictation from Mr. Berman, but she now reached for her
note-book in instinctive defense against conversation. "Some work for
me?" She did not look up.
"Something for you to make a note of, but no work," he returned in his
low, well-modulated voice that had seemed to her the very vocalization
of gentlemanliness. "I remember the promise you made me give--during
business hours, only business. But I have been looking for a chance all
day to break it. I want to remind you again that the six months are up
to-morrow night."
"Yes. My answer will be ready."
He waited for her to say something more, but she did not; and he passed
on to his own room.
Ruth had two revelations to ponder; but it was to the sudden insight she
had been given into the real cause of the contractors' approaching
victory that she gave her first thought, and not to the sudden insight
into the character of Mr. Berman. From the first minute there was no
doubt as to what she should do, and yet there was a long debate in her
mind. If she were to give Tom the bare fact that had been revealed to
her, and, using it as a clue, he were to uncover the whole plan, there
would come a disgraceful exposure involving her uncle, her employers,
and, to a degree, all the steel contractors. And another sentiment threw
its influence against disclosing her information: her natural shrinking
from opening communication with Tom; and mixed with this was a remnant
of her resentment that he had treated her so. She had instinctively
placed him beside Mr. Berman, and had been compelled to admit with pain:
"Mr. Berman would never have done it."
But her sense of right was of itself enough to have forced her to make
the one proper use of the information chance had given her; and besides
this sense of right there was her love, ready for any sacrifice. So she
covertly scribbled the following note to Tom:
MY DEAR MR. KEATING:
Are you sure Mr. Foley is not playing the union false?
RUTH ARNOLD.
He is.
With curious femininity she had, at the last moment, tried to
compromise, suggesting enough by her question to furnish a clue to Tom,
and yet saying so little that she could tell herself she had really not
betrayed her friends; and then, in two words, she had impulsively flung
him all her knowledge.
The note written, she thought of the second revelation; of the Mr.
Berman she had really liked so well for his æsthetic taste, for his
irreproachable gentlemanliness, for all the things Tom was not. "Oh,
it's all right," he had said easily. And she placed him beside Tom, and
admitted with pain-adulterated happiness: "Mr. Keating would never have
done that."
When her work for the day was over she hurried to the postoffice in Park
Row and dropped the letter into the slot marked "Special Delivery." And
when Tom came back from his second call at the Petersen home Maggie was
awaiting him with it. At sight of the handwriting on the envelope the
color left his face. He tore open the envelope with an eagerness he
tried to conceal in an assumed carelessness, and read the score of
words.
When he looked up from the note, Maggie's eyes were fastened on his
face. A special delivery letter had never come to their home before.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Just a note about the strike," he answered, and put the letter into his
pocket.
The explanation did not satisfy Maggie, but, as it was far past their
bedtime, she turned slowly and went into the bedroom.
"I'm not coming to bed for a little while," he called to her.
The next minute he was lost in the excitement begotten by the letter. It
was true, then, what he had suspected. Ruth, he knew, would never have
written the note unless she had been certain. His head filled with a
turmoil of thoughts--every third one about Ruth; but these he tried to
force aside, for he was face to face with a crisis and needed all his
brain. And some of his thoughts were appalling ones that the union was
so perilously near its betrayal; and some were exultant, that he was
right after all. But amid this mental turmoil one thought, larger than
any of the others, with wild steadfastness held the central place of his
brain: there was a chance that, even yet, he could circumvent Foley and
save the union--that, fallen as low as he was, he might yet triumph.
But by what plan? He was more certain than ever of Foley's guilt, but he
could not base a denunciation of Foley upon mere certitude, unsupported
by a single fact. He had to have facts. And how to get them? One wild
plan after another acted itself out as a play in his excited brain, in
which he had such theatric parts as descending accusingly upon Mr.
Baxter and demanding a confession, or cunningly trapping Foley into an
admission of the truth, or gaining it at point of pistol. As the hours
passed his brain quieted somewhat, and he more quickly saw the absurdity
of schemes of this sort. But he could find no practicable plan, and a
frantic fear began to possess him: the meeting was less than two days
off, and as yet he saw no effective way of balking the sale of the
strike.
He sat with head on the table, he lay on the couch, he softly paced the
floor; and when the coming day sent its first dingy light into the back
yards and into the little sitting-room he was still without a feasible
scheme. A little later he turned down the gas and went into the street.
He came back after two hours, still lacking a plan, but quieter and with
better control of his mind.
"I suppose you settled the strike last night?" said Maggie, who was
preparing breakfast.
"I can hardly say I did," he returned abstractedly.
She did not immediately follow up her query, but in a few minutes she
came into the sitting-room where Tom sat. Determination had marked her
face with hard lines. "You're planning something," she began. "And it's
about the strike. It was that letter that kept you up all night. Now
you're scheming to put off settling the strike, ain't you?"
"Well,--suppose I am?" he asked quietly. He avoided her eyes, and looked
across at the opposite windows that framed instant-long pictures of
hurrying women.
"I know you are. I've been doing some thinking, too, while you were out
this morning, and it was an easy guess for me to know that when you
thought all night you weren't thinking about anything else except how
you could put off ending up the strike."
One thing that his love for Ruth had shown Tom was that mental
companionship could, and should, exist between man and wife; and one
phase of his gentleness with Maggie was that latterly he had striven to
talk to her of such matters as formerly he had spoken of only out of his
own home.
"Yes, you're right; I am thinking what you say," he began, knowing he
could trust her with his precious information. "But you don't
understand, Maggie. I am thinking how I can defeat settling the strike
because I know Foley is selling the union out."
Incredulity smoothed out a few of Maggie's hard lines. "You can prove
it?"
"I am going to try to get the facts."
"How?"
"I don't know," he had to admit, after a pause.
She gave a little laugh, and the hard lines came back. "Another crazy
plan. You lose the best job you ever had. You try to beat Foley out as
walking delegate, and get beat. You start a strike; it's the same as
lost. You push yourself into that Avon business--and you're only out on
bail, and we'll never live down the disgrace. You've ruined us, and
disgraced us, and yet you ain't satisfied. Here you are with another
scheme. And what are you going on? Just a guess, nothing else, that
Foley's selling out!"
Tom took it all in silence.
"Now you listen to me!" Her voice was fiercely mandatory, yet it lacked
something of its old-time harshness; Tom's gentleness had begun to rouse
its like in her. "Everything you've tried lately has been a failure. You
know that. Now don't make us any worse off than we are--and you will if
you try another fool scheme. For God's sake, let the strike be settled
and get back to work!"
"I suppose you think you're right, Maggie. But--you don't understand,"
he returned helplessly.
"Yes, I do understand," she said grimly. "And I not only think I'm
right, but I know I'm right. Who's been right every time?"
Tom did not answer her question, and after looking down on him a minute
longer, she said, "You remember what I've just told you," and returned
to the preparation of breakfast.
As soon as he had eaten Tom escaped into the street and made for the
little park that had once been a burying-ground. Here his mind set to
work again. It was more orderly now, and soon he was proceeding
systematically in his search for a plan by the method of elimination.
Plan after plan was discarded as the morning hurried by, till he at
length had this left as the only possibility, to follow Baxter and Foley
every minute during this day and the next. But straightway he saw the
impossibility of this only possible plan: he and any of his friends were
too well known by Foley to be able to shadow him, even had they the
experience to fit them for such work. A few minutes later, however, this
impossibility was gone. He could hire detectives.
He turned the plan over in his mind. There was, perhaps, but one chance
in a thousand the detectives would discover anything--perhaps hardly
that. But this fight was his fight for life, and this one chance was his
last chance.
At noon a private detective agency had in its safe Petersen's thirty
dollars and a check for the greater part of Tom's balance at the bank.
Chapter XXVIII
THE EXPOSURE
Tom's arrangement with the detective agency was that Baxter and Foley
were to be watched day and night, and that he was to have as frequent
reports as it was possible to give. Just before six o'clock that same
afternoon he called at the office for his first report. It was ready--a
minute account of the movements of the two men between one and five.
There was absolutely nothing in it of value to him, except that its
apparent completeness was a guarantee that if anything was to be found
the men on the case would find it.
Never before in Tom's life had there been as many hours between an
evening and a morning. He dared not lessen his suspense and the hours by
discussing his present move with friends; they could not help him, and,
if he told them, there was the possibility that some word might slip to
Foley which would rouse suspicion and destroy the thousandth chance. But
at length morning came, and at ten o'clock Tom was at the detective
agency. Again there was a minute report, the sum of whose worth to him
was--nothing.
He went into the street and walked, fear and suspense mounting higher
and higher. In ten hours the union would meet to decide, and as yet he
had no bit of evidence. At twelve o'clock he was at the office again.
There was nothing for him. Eight more hours. At two o'clock, dizzy and
shaking from suspense, he came into the office for the third time that
day. A report was waiting.
He glanced it through, then trying to speak calmly, said to the manager:
"Send anything else to my house."
Tom had said to himself that he had one chance in a thousand. But this
was a miscalculation. His chance had been better than that, and had been
made so by Mr. Baxter's shrewd arrangement for his dealings with Foley,
based upon his theory that one of the surest ways of avoiding suspicion
is to do naturally and openly the thing you would conceal. Mr. Baxter's
theory overlooked the possibility that suspicion might already be roused
and on watch.
Tom did not look at the sheet of paper in the hallway or in the street;
with three thousand union men in the street, all of whom knew him, one
was likely to pounce upon him at any minute and gain his secret
prematurely. With elation hammering against his ribs, he hurried through
a cross street toward the little park, which in the last five months had
come to be his study. The sheet of paper was buttoned tightly in his
coat, but all the time his brain was reading a few jerky phrases in the
detail-packed report.
In the park, and on a bench having the seclusion of a corner, he drew
the report from his pocket and read it eagerly, several times. Here was
as much as he had hoped for--evidence that what he had suspected was
true. With the few relevant facts of the report as a basis he began to
reconstruct the secret proceedings of the last three weeks. At each step
he tested conjectures till he found the only one that perfectly fitted
all the known circumstances. Progress from the known backward to the
unknown was not difficult, and by five o'clock the reconstruction was
complete. He then began to lay his plans for the evening.
Tom preferred not to face Maggie, with her demands certain to be
repeated, so he had his dinner in a restaurant whose only virtue was its
cheapness. At half past seven he arrived at Potomac Hall, looking as
much his usual self as he could. He passed with short nods the groups of
men who stood before the building--some of whom had once been his
supporters, but who now nodded negligently--and entered the big
bar-room. There were perhaps a hundred men here, all talking loudly; but
comparatively few were drinking or smoking--money was too scarce. He
paused an instant just within the door and glanced about. The men he
looked for were not there, and he started rapidly across the room.
"Hello, Keating! How's your strike?" called one of the crowd, a man
whom, two months before, he himself had convinced a strike should be
made.
"Eat-'Em-Up Keating, who don't know when he's had enough!" shouted
another, with a jeer.
"Three cheers for Keating!" cried a third, and led off with a groan. The
three groans were given heartily, and at their end the men broke into
laughter.
Tom burned at these crude insults, but kept straight on his way.
There were also friends in the crowd,--a few. When the laughter died
down one cried out: "What's the matter with Keating?" The set answer
came, "He's all right!"--but very weak. It was followed by an outburst
of groans and hisses.
As Tom was almost at the door the stub of a cigar struck smartly beneath
his ear, and the warm ashes slipped down inside his collar. There was
another explosion of laughter. Tom whirled about, and with one blow sent
to the floor the man who had thrown the cigar. The laugh broke off, and
in the sudden quiet Tom passed out of the bar-room and joined the stream
of members going up the broad stairway and entering the hall.
The hall was more than half filled with men--some sitting patiently in
their chairs, some standing with one foot on chair seats, some standing
in the aisles and leaning against the walls, all discussing the same
subject, the abandonment of the strike. The general mood of the men was
one of bitter eagerness, as it was also the mood of the men below, for
all their coarse jesting,--the bitterness of admitted defeat, the
eagerness to be back at their work without more delay.
Tom glanced around, and immediately he saw Petersen coming toward him,
his lean brown face glowing.
"Hello, Petersen. I was looking for you," he said in a whisper when the
Swede had gained his side. "I want you by me to-night."
"Yah."
Petersen's manner announced that he wanted to speak, and Tom now
remembered, what he had forgotten in his two days' absorption, the
circumstances under which he had last seen the Swede. "How are things at
home?" he asked.
"Ve be goin' to move. A better house." After this bit of loquacity
Petersen smiled blissfully--and said no more.
Tom told Petersen to join him later, and then hurried over to Barry and
Jackson, whom he saw talking with a couple other of his friends in the
front of the hall. "Boys, I want to tell you something in a minute," he
whispered. "Where's Pete?"
"The committee's havin' a meetin' in Connelly's office," answered Barry.
Tom hurried to Connelly's office and knocked. "Come in," a voice called,
and he opened the door. The five men were just leaving their chairs.
"Hello, Pete. Can I see you as soon's you're through?" Tom asked.
"Sure. Right now."
Connelly improved the opportunity by offering Tom some advice,
emphasized in the customary manner, and ended with the request: "Now for
God's sake, keep your wind-hole plugged up to-night!"
Tom did not reply, but as he was starting away with Pete he heard Foley
say to the secretary: "Youse can't blame him, Connelly. Some o' the rest
of us know it ain't so easy to give up a fight."
Tom found Barry, Petersen and the three others waiting, and with them
was Johnson, who having noticed Tom whispering to them had carelessly
joined the group during his absence. "If you fellows'll step back here
I'll finish that little thing I was telling," he said, and led the way
to a rear corner, a dozen yards away from the nearest group.
When he turned to face the six, he found there were seven. Johnson had
followed. Tom hesitated. He did not care to speak before Johnson; he had
always held that person in light esteem because of his variable
opinions. And he did not care to ask Johnson to leave; that course might
beget a scene which in turn would beget suspicion. It would be better to
speak before him, and then see that he remained with the group.
"Don't show the least surprise while I'm talking; act like it was
nothing at all," he began in a whisper. And then he told them in a few
sentences what he had discovered, and what he planned to do.
They stared at him in astonishment. "Don't look like that or you'll give
away that we've got a scheme up our sleeves," he warned them. "Now I
want you fellows to stand by me. There may be trouble. Come on, let's
get our seats. The meeting will open pretty soon."
He had already picked out a spot, at the front end on the right side,
the corner formed by the wall and the grand piano. He now led the way
toward this. Half-way up the aisle he chanced to look behind him. There
were only six men. Johnson was gone.
"Take the seats up there," he whispered, and hurried out of the hall,
with a fear that Johnson at that minute might be revealing what he had
heard to Foley. But when he reached the head of the stairway he saw at
its foot Foley, Hogan, and Brown starting slowly up. With sudden relief
he turned back and joined his party. A little later Connelly mounted
the platform and gave a few preliminary raps on his table, and Johnson
was forgotten.
The men standing about the hall found seats. Word was sent to the
members loitering below that the meeting was beginning, and they came up
in a straggling body, two hundred strong. Every chair was filled; men
had to stand in the aisles, and along the walls, and in the rear where
there were no seats. It was the largest gathering of the union there had
been in three years. Tom noted this, and was glad.
All the windows were open, but yet the hall was suffocatingly close.
Hundreds of cigars were momently making it closer, and giving the upper
stratum of the room's atmosphere more and more the appearance of a
solid. Few coats were on; they hung over the arms of those standing, and
lay in the laps of those who sat. Connelly, putting down his gavel, took
off his collar and tie and laid them on his table, an example that was
given the approval of general imitation. Everywhere faces were being
mopped.
Connelly rapped again, and stood waiting till quiet had spread among the
fifteen hundred men. "I guess you all know what we're here for," he
began. "If there's no objection I guess we can drop the regular order o'
business and get right to the strike."
There was a general cry of "consent."
"Very well. Then first we'll hear from the strike committee."
Foley, as chairman of the strike committee, should have spoken for it;
but the committee, being aware of the severe humiliation he was
suffering, and to save him what public pain it could, had
sympathetically decided that some other member should deliver its
report. And Foley, with his cunning that extended even to the smallest
details, had suggested Pete, and Pete had been selected.
Pete now rose, and with hands on Tom's shoulders, calmly spoke what the
committee had ordered. The committee's report was that it had nothing
new to report. After carefully considering every circumstance it saw no
possible way of winning the strike. It strongly advised the union to
yield at once, as further fighting meant only further loss of wages.
Pete was hardly back in his seat when it was moved and seconded that the
union give up the strike. A great stamping and cries of "That's right!"
"Give it up!" "Let's get back to work!" joined to give the motion a
tremendous uproar of approval.
"You have heard the motion," said Connelly. "Any remarks?"
Men sprang up in all parts of the crowd, and for over an hour there were
brief speeches, every one in favor of yielding. In substance they were
the same: "Since the strike's lost, let's get back to work and not lose
any more wages." Every speaker was applauded with hand-clapping, stamps,
and shouts; an enthusiasm for retreat had seized the crowd. Foley was
called for, but did not respond. Other speakers did, however, and the
enthusiasm developed to the spirit of a panic. Through speeches, shouts,
and stamping Tom sat quietly, biding his time.
Several of the speakers made bitter flings at the leadership that had
involved them in this disastrous strike. Finally one man, spurred to
abandon by applause, ended his hoarse invective by moving the expulsion
of the members who had led the union into the present predicament. So
far Foley had sat with face down, without a word, in obvious dejection.
But when this last speaker was through he rose slowly to his feet. At
sight of him an eager quiet possessed the meeting.
"I can't say's I blame youse very much for what youse've said," he
began, in a voice that was almost humble, looking toward the man who had
just sat down. "I helped get the union into the strike, yes, an' I want
youse boys"--his eyes moved over the crowd--"to give me all the blame
that's comin' to me."
A pause. "But I ain't the only one. I didn't do as much to bring on the
strike as some others." His glance rested on Tom. "The fact is, I really
didn't go in for the strike till I saw all o' youse seemed to be in for
it. Then o' course I did, for I'm always with youse. An' I fought hard,
so long's there was a chance. Mebbe there's a few"--another glance at
Tom--"that'd like to have us keep on fightin'--an' starve. Blame me all
youse want to, boys--but Buck Foley don't want none o' youse to starve."
He sank slowly back into his chair. "You did your best, Buck!" a voice
shouted, and a roar of cheers went up. To those near him he seemed to
brighten somewhat at this encouragement.
"Three cheers for Keating!" cried the man who had raised this shout in
the bar-room, springing to his feet. And again he led off with three
groans, which the crowd swelled to a volume matching the cheers for
Foley. Connelly, in deference to his office, pounded with his gavel and
called for silence--but weakly.
Tom flushed and his jaw tightened, but he kept his seat.
The crowd began once more to demand Foley's views on the question before
the house. He shook his head at Connelly, as he had repeatedly done
before. But the meeting would not accept his negative. They added the
clapping of hands and the stamping of feet to their cries. Foley came up
a second time, with most obvious reluctance.
"I feel sorter like the man that was run over by a train an' had his
tongue cut out," he began, making what the union saw was a hard effort
to smile. "I don't feel like sayin' much.
"It seems to me that everything worth sayin' has been said already," he
went on in his previous humble, almost apologetic, tone. "What I've got
to say I'll say in the shadow of a minute. I size up the whole thing
like this: We went into this strike thinkin' we'd win, an' because we
needed more money. An' boys, we ought to have it! But we made a mistake
somewhere. I guess youse've found out that in a fight it ain't always
the man that's right that wins. It's the strongest man. The same in a
strike. We're right, and we've fought our best, but the other fellows
are settin' on our chests. I guess our mistake was, we wasn't as strong
when we went into the fight as we thought we was.
"Now the question, as I see it, is: Do we want to keep the other fellow
on our chests, we all fagged out, with him mebbe punchin' our faces
whenever he feels like it?--keep us there till we're done up forever? Or
do we want to give in an' say we've had enough? He'll let us up, we'll
take a rest, we'll get back our wind an' strength, an' when we're good
an' ready, why, another fight, an' better luck! I know which is my
style, an' from what youse boys've said here to-night, I can make a
pretty good guess as to what's your style."
He paused for a moment, and when he began again his voice was lower and
there was a deep sadness in it that he could not hide. "Boys, this is
the hardest hour o' my life. I ain't very used to losin' fights. I think
youse can count in a couple o' days all the fights I lost for youse. [A
cry, "Never a one, Buck!"] An' it comes mighty hard for me to begin to
lose now. If I was to do what I want to do, I'd say, 'Let's never give
in.' But I know what's best for the union, boys ... an' so I lose my
first strike."
He sank back into his seat, and his head fell forward upon his breast.
There was a moment of sympathetic silence, then an outburst of shouts:
"It ain't your fault!" "You've done your best!" "You take your lickin'
like a man!" But these individual shouts were straightway lost in cries
of "Foley!" "Foley!" and in a mighty cheer that thundered through the
hall. Next to a game fighter men admire a game loser.
This was Tom's moment. He had been waiting till Foley should place
himself on record before the entire union. He now stood up and raised
his right hand to gain Connelly's attention. "Mr. Chairman!" he called.
"Question!" "Question!" shouted the crowd, few even noticing that Tom
was claiming right of speech.
"Mr. Chairman!" Tom cried again.
Connelly's attention was caught, and for an instant he looked
irresolutely at Tom. The crowd, following their president's eyes, saw
Tom and broke into a great hiss.
"D'you want any more speeches?" Connelly put to the union.
"No!" "No!" "Question!" "Question!"
"All in favor of the motion----"
The desperate strait demanded an eminence to speak from, but the way to
the platform was blocked. Tom vaulted to the top of the grand piano, and
his eyes blazed down upon the crowd.
"You shall listen to me!" he shouted, breaking in on Connelly. His right
arm pointed across the hall to where Foley was bowed in humiliation.
"Buck Foley has sold you out!"
In the great din his voice did not carry more than a dozen rows, but
upon those rows silence fell suddenly. "What was that?" men just behind
asked excitedly, their eyes on Tom standing on the piano, his arm
stretched toward Foley. A tide of explanation moved backward, and the
din sank before it.
Tom shouted again: "Buck Foley has sold you out!"
This time his words reached the farthest man in the hall. There was an
instant of stupefied quiet. Then Foley himself stood up. He seemed to
have paled a shade, but there was not a quaver in his voice when he
spoke.
"This's a nice little stage play our friend's made up for the last
minute. He's been fightin' a settlement right along, an' this is his
last trick to get youse to put it off. He's sorter like a blind friend
o' mine who went fishin' one day. He got turned with his back to the
river, an' he fished all day in the grass. I think Keating's got turned
in the wrong direction, too."
A few in the crowd laughed waveringly; some began to talk excitedly; but
most looked silently at Tom, still stunned by his blow-like declaration.
Tom paid no attention to Foley's words. "Fifty thousand dollars was what
he got!" he said in his loudest voice.
For the moment it was as if those fifteen hundred men had been struck
dumb and helpless. Again it was Foley who broke the silence. He reared
his long body above the bewildered crowd and spoke easily. "If youse
boys don't see through that lie youse're blind. If I was runnin' the
strike alone an' wanted to sell it out, what Keating's said might be
possible. But I ain't runnin' it. A committee is--five men. Now how
d'youse suppose I could sell out with four men watchin' me--an' one o'
them a friend o' Keating?"
He did not wait for a response from his audience. He turned to Connelly
and went on with a provoked air: "Mr. Chairman, youse know, an' the rest
o' the committee knows, that it was youse who suggested we give up the
strike. An' youse know I held out again' givin' in. Now ain't we had
enough o' Keating's wind? S'pose youse put the question."
What Foley had said was convincing; and, even at this instant, Tom
himself could but admire the self-control, the air of provoked
forbearance, with which he said it. The quiet, easy speech had given the
crowd time to recover. As Foley sat down there was a sudden tumult of
voices, and then loud cries of "Question!" "Question!"
"Order, Mr. Chairman! I demand the right to speak!" Tom cried.
"No one wants to hear you, and the question's called for."
Tom turned to the crowd. "It's for you to say whether you'll hear me
or----"
"Out of order!" shouted Connelly.
"I've got facts, men! Facts! Will it hurt you to hear me? You can vote
as you please, then!"
"Question!" went up a roar, and immediately after it a greater and
increasing roar of "Keating!" "Keating!"
Connelly could but yield. He pounded for order, then nodded at Tom.
"Well, go on."
Tom realized the theatricality of his position on the piano, but he also
realized its advantage, and did not get down. He waited a moment to gain
control of his mind, and his eyes moved over the rows and rows of faces
that gleamed dully from sweat and excitement through the haze of smoke.
What he had to say first was pure conjecture, but he spoke with the
convincing decision of the man who has guessed at nothing. "You've heard
the other men speak. All I ask of you is to hear me out the same way.
And I have something far more important to say than anything that's been
said here to-night. I am going to tell you the story of the most
scoundrelly trick that was ever played on a trade union. For the union
has been sold out, and Buck Foley lies when he says it has not, and he
knows he lies!"
Every man was listening intently. Tom went on: "About three weeks ago,
just when negotiations were opened again, Foley arranged with the bosses
to sell out the strike. Fifty thousand dollars was the price. The bosses
were to make a million or more out of the deal, Foley was to make fifty
thousand, and we boys were to pay for it all! Foley's work was to fool
the committee, make them lose confidence in the strike, and they of
course would make the union lose confidence and we'd give up. That was
his job, and for it he was to have fifty thousand dollars.
"Well, he was the man for the job. He worked the committee, and worked
it so slick it never knew it was being worked. He even made the
committee think it was urging him to give up the strike. How he did it,
it's beyond me or any other honest man even to guess. No one could have
done it but Foley. He's the smoothest crook that ever happened. I give
you that credit, Buck Foley. You're the smoothest crook that ever
happened!"
Foley had come to his feet with a look that was more of a glaring scowl
than anything else: eyebrows drawn down shaggily, a gully between
them--nose drawn up and nostrils flaring--jaws clenched--the whole face
clenched. "Mr. President, are youse goin' to let that man go on with his
lies?" he broke in fiercely.
The crowd roused from its tension. "Go on, Keating! Go on!"
"If he goes on with them lies, I for one ain't goin' to stay to listen
to 'em!" Foley grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and started
to edge through to the aisle.
"If you leave, Buck Foley, it's the same as a confession of guilt!"
shouted Tom. "Stay here and defend yourself like a man, if you can!"
"Against youse?" He laughed a dry cackling laugh, and his returning
self-mastery smoothed out his face. And then his inherent bravado showed
itself. On reaching the aisle, instead of turning toward the door, he
turned toward the platform and seated himself on its edge, directing a
look of insouciant calm upon the men.
"Whatever lies there are, are all yours, Buck Foley," Tom went on. He
looked again at the crowd, bending toward him in attention. "The trick
worked. How well is shown by our being on the point of voting to give up
the strike. Little by little our confidence was destroyed by doubt, and
little by little Foley got nearer to his money--till to-day came. I'm
speaking facts now, boys. I've got evidence for everything I'm going to
tell you. I know every move Foley's made in the last thirty-six hours.
"Well, this morning,--I'll only give the big facts, facts that
count,--this morning he went to get the price of us--fifty thousand
dollars. Where do you suppose he met Baxter? In some hotel, or some
secret place? Not much. Cunning! That word don't do justice to Foley. He
met Baxter in Baxter's own office!--and with the door open! Could
anything be more in harmony with the smooth scheme by which he fooled
the committee? He left the door wide open, so everyone outside could
hear that nothing crooked was going on. He swore at Baxter. He called
him every sort of name because he would not make us any concession.
After a minute or two he came out, still swearing mad. His coat was
buttoned up--tight. It was unbuttoned when he went in. And the people
that heard thought what an awful calling-down Baxter had got.
"Foley went first to the Independence Bank. He left seventeen thousand
there. At the Jackson Bank he left fifteen thousand, and at the Third
National eighteen thousand. Fifty thousand dollars, boys--his price for
selling us out! And he comes here to-night and pretends to be
broken-hearted. 'This is the hardest hour of my life,' he says; 'and so
I lose my first strike.' Broken-hearted!--with fifty thousand put in the
bank in one day!"
There was a tense immobility through all the crowd, and a profound
stillness, quickly broken by Foley before anyone else could forestall
him. There was a chance that Tom's words had not caught hold--his
thousandth chance.
"If that fool is through ravin', better put the motion, Connelly," he
remarked the instant Tom ended, in an even tone that reached the
farthest edge of the hall. No one looking at him at this instant, still
sitting on the edge of the platform, would have guessed his show of
calmness was calling from him the supreme effort of his life.
Voices buzzed, then there rose a dull roar of anger.
It had been Foley's last chance, and he had lost. He threw off his
control, and leaped to his feet, his face twisted with vengeful rage. He
tossed his hat and coat on the platform, and without a word made a rush
through the men toward Tom.
"Let him through, boys!" Tom shouted, and sprang from the piano.
Petersen stepped quickly to his side, but Tom pushed him away and waited
in burning eagerness in the little open space. And the crowd, still
dazed by the revelations of the last scene, looked fascinated upon this
new one.
But at this moment an interruption came from the rear of the hall.
"Letter for Foley!" shouted a voice. "Letter for Foley!"
Foley paused in his rush, and turned his livid face toward the cry. The
sergeant-at-arms was pushing his way through the center aisle, repeating
his shout, his right hand holding an envelope aloft. He gained Foley's
side and laid the letter in the walking delegate's hand. "Messenger just
brought it! Very important!" he cried.
Foley glared at Tom, looked at the letter, hesitated, then ripped open
the envelope with a bony forefinger. The crowd looked on, hardly
breathing, while he read.
Chapter XXIX
IN WHICH MR. BAXTER SHOWS HIMSELF A MAN OF RESOURCES
It was just eight o'clock when Johnson gave three excited raps with the
heavy iron knocker on the door of Mr. Baxter's house in Madison Avenue.
A personage in purple evening clothes drew the door wide open, but on
seeing the sartorial character of the caller he filled the doorway with
his own immaculate figure.
"Is Mr. Baxter at home?" asked Johnson eagerly.
"He is just going out," the other condescended to reply.
That should have been enough to dispose of this common fellow. But
Johnson kept his place. "I want to see him, for just a minute. Tell him
my name. He'll see me. It's Johnson."
The personage considered a space, then disappeared to search for Mr.
Baxter; first showing his discretion by closing the door--with Johnson
outside of it. He quickly reappeared and led Johnson across a hall that
was as large as Johnson's flat, up a broad stairway, and through a wide
doorway into the library, where he left him, standing, to gain what he
could from sight of the rows and rows of leather-backed volumes.
Almost at once Mr. Baxter entered, dressed in a dinner coat.
"You have something to tell me?" he asked quickly.
"Yes."
"This way." Mr. Baxter led Johnson into a smaller room, opening upon the
library, furnished with little else besides a flat-top walnut desk, a
telephone, and a typewriter on a low table. Here Mr. Baxter sometimes
attended to his correspondence, with the assistance of a stenographer
sent from the office, when he did not feel like going downtown; and in
here, when the mood was on him, he sometimes slipped to write bits of
verse, a few of which he had published in magazines under a pseudonym.
Mr. Baxter closed the door, took the chair at the desk and waved Johnson
to the stenographer's. "I have only a minute. What is it?"
For all his previous calls on Mr. Baxter, this refined presence made
Johnson dumb with embarrassment. He would have been more at his ease had
he had the comfort of fumbling his hat, but the purple personage had
gingerly taken his battered derby from him at the door.
"Well?" said Mr. Baxter, a bit impatiently.
Johnson found his voice and rapidly told of Tom's discovery, as he had
heard it from Tom twenty minutes before, and of the exposure that was
going to be made that evening. At first Mr. Baxter seemed to start; the
hand on the desk did certainly tighten. But that was all.
"Did Mr. Keating say, in this story he proposes to tell, whether we
offered Mr. Foley money to sell out, or whether Mr. Foley demanded it?"
he asked, when Johnson had ended.
"He didn't say. He didn't seem to know."
Mr. Baxter did not speak for a little while; then he said, with a quiet
carelessness: "What you have told me is of no great importance, though
it probably seems so to you. It might, however, have been of great
value. So I want to say to you that I thoroughly appreciate the
promptness with which you have brought me this intelligence. If I can
still depend upon your faithfulness, and your secrecy----" Mr. Baxter
paused.
"Always," said Johnson eagerly.
"And your secrecy--" this with a slight emphasis, the gray eyes looking
right through Johnson; "you can count upon an early token of
appreciation, in excess of what regularly comes to you."
"You've always found you could count on me, ain't you?"
"Yes."
"And you always can!"
Mr. Baxter touched a button beneath his desk. "Have Mitchell show Mr.
Johnson out," he said to the maid who answered the ring. "Do you know
where Mrs. Baxter is?"
"In her room, sir."
Johnson bowed awkwardly, and backed away after the maid.
"Good-night," Mr. Baxter said shortly, and followed the two out. He
crossed the library with the intention of going to the room of his
wife, who had come to town to be with him during the crisis of the
expected victory, but he met her in the hall ready to go out.
"My dear, some important business has just come up," he said. "I'm
afraid there's nothing for me to do but to attend to it to-night."
"That's too bad! I don't care for myself, for it's only one of those
stupid musical comedies. I only cared to go because I thought it would
help you through the suspense of the evening."
After the exchange of a few more words he kissed her and she went
quietly back to her room. He watched her a moment, wondering if she
would bear herself with such calm grace if she knew what awaited him in
to-morrow's papers.
He passed quickly back into the little office, and locked the door
behind him. Then the composure he had worn before Johnson and his wife
swiftly vanished; and he sat at the desk with interlocked hands, facing
the most critical situation of his life. There was no doubting what
Johnson had told him.
When to-morrow's papers appeared with their certain stories--first page,
big headlines--of how he and other members of the Executive Committee,
all gentlemen of reputation, had bribed a walking delegate, and a
notoriously corrupt walking delegate, to sell out the Iron Workers'
strike--the members of the committee would be dishonored forever, and he
dishonored more than all. And his wife, how could she bear this? How
could he explain to her, who believed him nothing but honor, once this
story was out?
He forced these sickening thoughts from his brain. He had no time for
them. Disgrace must be avoided, if possible, and every minute was of
honor's consequence. He strained his mind upon the crisis. The strike
was now nothing; of first importance, of only importance, was how to
escape disgrace.
It was the peculiar quality of Mr. Baxter's trained mind that he saw,
with almost instant directness, the best chance in a business situation.
Two days before it had taken Tom from eleven to eleven, twelve hours, to
see his only chance. Mr. Baxter now saw his only chance in less than
twelve minutes.
His only chance was to forestall exposure, by being the first to tell
the story publicly. He saw his course clearly--to rush straight to the
District Attorney, to tell a story almost identical with Tom's, and that
varied from the facts on only two points. First of these two points, the
District Attorney was to be told that Foley had come to them demanding
fifty thousand dollars as the price of settlement. Second, that they had
seen in this demand a chance to get the hands of the law upon this
notorious walking delegate; that they had gone into the plan with the
sole purpose of gaining evidence against him and bringing him to
justice; that they had been able to secure a strong case of extortion
against him, and now demanded his arrest. This same story was to go to
the newspapers before they could possibly get Tom's. The committee would
then appear to the world in no worse light than having stooped to the
use of somewhat doubtful means to rid themselves and the union of a
piratical blackmailer.
Mr. Baxter glanced at his watch. It was half-past eight. He stepped to
the telephone, found the number of the home telephone of the District
Attorney, and rang him up. He was in, luckily, and soon had the receiver
at his ear. Could Mr. Baxter see him in half an hour on a matter of
importance--of great public importance? Mr. Baxter could.
He next rang up Mr. Murphy, who had been with him in his office that
morning when the money had been handed to Foley. Mr. Murphy was also at
home, and answered the telephone himself. Could Mr. Baxter meet him in
fifteen minutes in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria? Very important. Mr.
Murphy could.
As he left the telephone it struck him that while the committee must
seemingly make every effort to secure Foley's arrest, it would be far
better for them if Foley escaped. If arrested, he would naturally turn
upon them and tell his side of the affair. Nobody would believe him, for
he was one against five, but all the same he could start a most
unpleasant story.
One instant the danger flashed upon Mr. Baxter. The next instant his
plan for its avoidance was ready. He seated himself at the typewriter,
drew off its black sole-leather case, ran in a sheet of plain white
paper, and, picking at the keys, slowly wrote a message to Foley. That
finished, he ran in a plain envelope, which he addressed to Foley at
Potomac Hall. This letter he would leave at the nearest messenger
office.
Five minutes later Mr. Baxter, in a business suit, passed calmly through
his front door, opened for him by the purple personage, and out into the
street.
Chapter XXX
THE LAST OF BUCK FOLEY
The letter which Foley read, while the union looked on, hardly
breathing, was as follows:
All is over. The District Attorney will be told to-night you held
them up, forcing them to give you the amount you received. They have
all the evidence; you have none. Their hands are clean. Against you
it is a perfect case of extortion.
Though the note was unsigned, Foley knew instantly from whom it came.
The contractors, then, were going to try to clear themselves, and he was
to be made the scapegoat. He was to be arrested; perhaps at once. Foley
had thought over his situation before, its possibilities and its
dangers. His mind worked quickly now. If he came to trial, they had the
witnesses as the note said--and he had none. As they would be able to
make it out, it would be a plain case of extortion against him. He could
not escape conviction, and conviction meant years in Sing Sing. Truly,
all was over. He saw his only chance in an instant--to escape.
The reading of the note, and this train of thought, used less than a
minute. Foley crushed the sheet of paper and envelope into a ball and
thrust them into a trousers pocket, and looked up with the
determination to try his only chance. His eyes fell upon what in the
tense absorption of the minute he had almost forgotten--fifteen hundred
men staring at him with fixed waiting faces, and one man staring at him
with clenched fists in vengeful readiness.
At sight of Tom his decision to escape was swept out of him by an
overmastering fury. He rushed toward Tom through the alleyway the men
had automatically opened at Tom's command. But Petersen stepped quickly
out, a couple of paces ahead of Tom, to meet him.
"Out o' the way, youse!" he snarled.
But Petersen did not get out of the way, and before Tom could interfere
to save the fight for himself, Foley struck out savagely. Petersen gave
back a blow, just one, the blow that had gained the fight for him a week
ago. Foley went to the floor, and lay there.
This flash of action released the crowd from the spell that held them.
They were roused from statues to a mob. "Kill him! Kill him!" someone
shouted, and instantly the single cry swelled to a tremendous roar.
Had it not been for Tom, Foley would have come to his end then and
there. The fifteen hundred men started forward, crushing through aisles,
upsetting the folding chairs and tramping over their collapsed frames,
pushing and tearing at each other to get to where Foley lay. Tom saw
that in an instant the front of that vindictive mob would be stamping
the limp body of the walking delegate into pulp. He sprang to Foley's
side, seized him by his collar and dragged him forward into the space
between the piano and the end wall, so that the heavy instrument was a
breastwork against the union's fury.
"Here Petersen, Pete, the rest of you!" he cried. The little group that
had stood round him during the meeting rushed forward. "In there!" He
pushed them, as a guard, into the gap before Foley's body.
Then he faced about. The fore of that great tumult of wrath was already
pressing upon him and the little guard, and the men behind were fighting
forward over chairs, over each other, swearing and crying for Foley's
death.
"Stop!" shouted Tom. Connelly, stricken with helplessness, completely
lost, pounded weakly with his gavel.
"Kill him!" roared the mob. "Kill the traitor!"
"Disgrace the union by murder?" Tom shouted. "Kill him?--what punishment
is that? Nothing at all! Let the law give him justice!"
The cries from the rear of the hall still went up, but the half dozen
men who had crowded, and been crowded, upon the little guard now drew
back, and Tom thought his words were having their effect. But a quick
glance over his shoulder showed him Petersen, in fighting posture--and
he knew why the front men had hesitated; and also showed him Foley
leaning dizzily against the piano.
The hesitation on the part of the front rank lasted for but an instant.
They were swept forward by the hundreds behind them, and Foley's line of
defenders was crushed against the wall. It was all up with Foley, Tom
thought; this onslaught would be the last of him. And as his own body
went against the wall under the mob's terrific pressure, he had a
gasping wish that he had not interfered two minutes before. The breath
was all out of him, he thought his ribs were going to crack, he was
growing faint and dizzy--when the pressure suddenly released and the
furious uproar hushed almost to stillness. He regained his balance and
his breath and glanced dazedly about.
There, calmly standing on the piano and leaning against the wall, was
Foley, his left hand in his trousers pocket, his right uplifted to
command attention.
"Boys, I feel it sorter embarrassin' to interrupt your little
entertainment like this," he began blandly, but breathing very heavily.
"But I suppose I won't have many more chances to make speeches before
youse, an' I want to make about a remark an' a half. What's past--well,
youse know. But what I got to say about the future is all on the level.
Go in an' beat the contractors! Youse can beat 'em. An' beat 'em like
hell!"
He paused, and gave an almost imperceptible glance toward an open window
a few feet away, and moved a step nearer it. A look of baiting defiance
came over his face, and he went on: "As for youse fellows. The whole
crowd o' youse just tried to do me up--a thousand or two again' one. I
fooled the whole bunch o' youse once. An' I can lick the whole bunch o'
youse, too!--one at a time. But not just now!"
With his last word he sprang across to the sill of the open window, five
feet away. Tom had noted Foley's glance and his edging toward the
window, and guessing that Foley contemplated some new move, he had held
himself in readiness for anything. He sprang after Foley, thinking the
walking delegate meant to leap to his death on the stone-paved court
below, and threw his arms about the other's knees. In the instant of
embracing he noticed a fire-escape landing across the narrow court, an
easy jump--and he knew that Foley had had no thought of death.
As Tom jerked Foley from the window sill he tripped over a chair and
fell backward to the floor, the walking delegate's body upon him. Foley
was on his feet in an instant, but Tom lay where he was with the breath
knocked out of him. He dimly heard the union break again into cries;
feet trampled him; he felt a keen shooting pain. Then he was conscious
that some force was turning the edge of the mob from its path; then he
was lifted up and placed at the window out of which he had just dragged
Foley; and then, Petersen's arm supporting him, he stood weakly on one
foot holding to the sill.
For an instant he had a glimpse of Foley, on the platform, his back to
the wall. During the minute Tom had been on the floor a group of Foley's
roughs, moved by some strange reawakening of loyalty, had rushed to his
aid, but they had gone down; and now Foley stood alone, behind a table,
sneering at the crowd.
"Come on!" he shouted, with something between a snarl and a laugh,
shaking his clenched fist. "Come on, one at a time, an' I'll do up every
one o' youse!"
The next instant he went down, and at the spot where he sank the crowd
swayed and writhed as the vortex of a whirlpool. Tom, sickened, turned
his eyes away.
Turned them to see three policemen and two men in plain clothes with
badges on their lapels enter the hall, stand an instant taking in the
scene, and then with drawn clubs plunge forward into the crowd. The cry
of "Police!" swept from the rear to the front of the hall.
"We're after Foley!" shouted the foremost officer, a huge fellow with a
huge voice, by way of explanation. "Get out o' the way!"
The last cry he repeated at every step. The crowd pressed to either
side, and the five men shouldered slowly toward the vortex of the
whirlpool. At length they gained this fiercely swaying tangle of men.
"If youse kill that man, we'll arrest every one o' youse for murder!"
boomed the voice of the big policeman.
The vortex became suddenly less violent. The five officers pulled man
after man back, and reached Foley's body. He was lying on his side,
almost against the wall, eyes closed, mouth slightly gaping. He did not
move.
"Too late!" said the big policeman. "He's dead!"
His words ran back through the crowd which had so lusted for this very
event. Stillness fell upon it.
The big policeman stooped and gently turned the long figure over and
placed his hand above the heart. The inner circle of the crowd looked
on, waiting. After a moment the policeman's head nodded.
"Beatin'?" asked one of the plain clothes men.
"Yes. But mighty weak."
"I'll be all right in a minute," said a faint voice.
The big policeman started and glanced at Foley's face. The eyes were
open, and looking at him.
"I s'pose youse're from Baxter?" the faint voice continued.
"From the District Attorney."
"Yes." A whimsical lightness appeared in the voice. "I been waitin' for
youse. Lucky youse come when youse did. A few minutes later an' youse
might not 'a' found me still waitin'."
He placed his hands beside him and weakly tried to rise, but fell back
with a little groan. The big policeman and another officer helped him to
his feet. The big policeman tried to keep an arm round him for support,
but Foley pushed it away and leaned against the wall, where he stood a
moment gazing down on the hundreds of faces. His shirt was ripped open
at the neck and down to the waist; one sleeve was almost torn off; his
vest was open and hung in two halves from the back of his neck; coat he
had not had on. His face was beginning to swell, his lips were bloody,
and there was a dripping cut on his forehead.
One of the plain clothes men drew out a pair of handcuffs.
"Youse needn't put them on me," Foley said. "I'll go with youse.
Anyhow----"
He glanced down at his right hand. It was swollen, and was turning
purple.
The plain clothes man hesitated.
"Oh, he can't give us no trouble," said the big policeman.
The handcuffs were pocketed.
"I'm ready," said Foley.
It was arranged that two of the uniformed men were to lead the way out,
the big policeman was to come next with Foley, and the two plain clothes
men were to be the rearguard.
The big policeman placed an arm round Foley's waist. "I better give
youse a lift," he said.
"Oh, I ain't that weak!" returned Foley. "Come on." He started off
steadily. Certainly he had regained strength in the last few minutes.
As the six men started a passage opened before them. The little group of
roughs who had come to Foley's defense a few minutes before now fell in
behind.
Half-way to the door Foley stopped, and addressed the crowd at large:
"Where's Keating?"
"Up by the piano," came the answer.
"Take me to him for a minute, won't youse?" he asked of his guard.
They consulted, then turned back. Again a passage opened and they
marched to where Tom sat, very pale, leaning against the piano. The
crowd pressed up, eager to get a glimpse of these two enemies, now face
to face for the last time.
"Look out, Tom!" a voice warned, as Foley, with the policeman at his
side, stepped forth from his guard.
"Oh, our fight's all over," said Foley. He paused and gazed steadily
down at Tom. None of those looking on could have said there was any
softness in his face, yet few had ever before seen so little harshness
there.
"I don't know of a man that, an hour ago, I'd 'a' rather put out o'
business than youse, Keating," he at length said quietly. "I don't love
youse now. But the real article is scarce, an' when I meet it--well, I
like to shake hands."
He held out his left hand. Tom looked hesitantly up into the face of the
man who had brought him to fortune's lowest ebb--and who was now yet
lower himself. Then he laid his left hand in Foley's left.
Suddenly Foley leaned over and whispered in Tom's ear. Then he
straightened up. "Luck with youse!" he said shortly and turned to his
guards. "Come on."
Again the crowd made way. Foley marched through the passage, his head
erect, meeting every gaze unshrinkingly. The greater part of the crowd
looked on silently at the passing of their old leader, now torn and
bruised and bleeding, but as defiant as in his best days. A few laughed
and jeered and flung toward him contemptuous words, but Foley heeded
them not, marching steadily on, looking into every face.
At the door he paused, and with a lean, blood-trickled smile of mockery,
and of an indefinite something else--perhaps regret?--gazed back for a
moment on the men he had led for seven years. Then he called out,
"So-long, boys!" and waved his left hand with an air that was both
jaunty and sardonic.
He turned about, and wiping the red drops from his face with his bare
left hand, passed out of Potomac Hall. Just behind him and his guard
came the little group of roughs, slipping covert glances among
themselves. And behind them the rest of the union fell in; and the head
of the procession led down the broad stairway and forth into the street.
Then, without warning, there was a charge of the roughs. The five
officers were in an instant overwhelmed--tripped, or overpowered and
hurled to the pavement--and the roughs swept on. The men behind rushed
forward, and without any such purpose entangled the policemen among
their numbers. It was a minute or more before the five officers were
free and had their bearings, and could begin pursuit and search.
But Buck Foley was not to be found.
Chapter XXXI
TOM'S LEVEE
It was seven o'clock the next morning. Tom lay propped up on the couch
in his sitting-room, his foot on a pillow, waiting for Maggie to come
back with the morning papers. A minute before he had asked Ferdinand to
run down and get them for him, but Maggie, who just then had been
starting out for a loaf of bread, had said shortly to the boy that she
would get them herself.
When Maggie had opened the door the night before, while Petersen was
clumsily trying to fit Tom's key into the keyhole, the sight of Tom
standing against the wall on one foot, his clothes in disorder, had been
to her imagination a full explanation of what had happened. Her face had
hardened and she had flung up her clenched hands in fierce helplessness.
"Oh, my God! So you've been at Foley again!" she had burst out. "More
trouble! My God, my God! I can't stand it any longer!" She would have
gone on, but the presence of a third person had suddenly checked her.
She had stood unmoving in the doorway, her eyes flashing, her breast
rising and falling. For an instant Tom, remembering a former
declaration, had expected her to close the door in his face, but with a
gesture of infinite, rageful despair she had stepped back from the door
without a word, and Petersen had supported him to the couch. Almost
immediately a doctor had appeared, for whom Tom and Petersen had left a
message on their way home; and by the time the doctor and Petersen had
gone, leaving Tom in bed, her fury had solidified into that obdurate,
resentful silence which was the characteristic second stage of her
wrath. Her injustice had roused Tom's antagonism, and thus far not a
word had passed between them.
The nearest newsstand was only a dozen steps from the tenement's door,
but minute after minute passed and still Maggie did not return. After a
quarter hour's waiting Tom heard the hall door open and close, and then
Maggie came into the sitting-room. He was startled at the change fifteen
minutes had made in her expression. The look of set hardness was gone;
the face was white and drawn, almost staring. She dropped the papers on
a chair beside the couch. The top one, crumpled, explained the length of
her absence and her altered look.
Tom's heart began to beat wildly; she knew it then! She paused beside
him, and with his eyes down-turned he waited for her to speak. Seconds
passed. He could see her hands straining, and hear her deep breath
coming and going. Suddenly she turned about abruptly and went into the
kitchen.
Tom looked wonderingly after her a moment; then his eyes were caught by
a black line half across the top of the crumpled paper: "Contractors
Trap Foley." He seized the paper and his eyes took in the rest of the
headline at a glance. "Arrested, But Makes Spectacular Escape"; a dozen
words about the contractors' plan; and then at the very end, in smallest
display type: "Also Exposed in Union." He quickly glanced through the
headlines of the other papers. In substance they were the same.
Utterly astounded, he raced through the several accounts of Foley's
exposure. They were practically alike. They told of Mr. Baxter's visit
to the District Attorney, and then recited the events of the past three
weeks just as Mr. Baxter had given them to the official prosecutor: How
Foley had tried to hold the Executive Committee up for fifty thousand
dollars; how the committee had seen in his demand a chance to get him
into the hands of the law, and so rid labor and capital of a common
enemy; how, after much deliberation, they had decided to make the
attempt; how the sham negotiations had proceeded; how yesterday, to make
the evidence perfect, Foley had been given the fifty thousand dollars he
had demanded as the price of settlement--altogether a most complete and
plausible story. "A perfect case," the District Attorney had called it.
Tom's part in the affair was told in a couple of paragraphs under a
subhead.
One of the papers had managed to get in a hurried editorial on Mr.
Baxter's story. "Perhaps their way of trapping Foley smacks strongly of
gum-shoe detective methods," the editorial concluded; "but their end,
the exposure of a notorious labor brigand, will in the mind of the
public entirely justify their means. They have earned the right to be
called public benefactors." Such in tone was the whole editorial. It
was a prophecy of the editorial praise that was to be heaped upon the
contractors in the afternoon papers and those of the next morning.
Tom flung the papers from him in sickened, bewildered wrath. He had
expected a personal triumph before the public. He felt there was
something wrong; he felt Mr. Baxter had robbed him of his glory, just as
Foley had robbed him of his strike. But in the first dazedness of his
disappointment he could not understand. He hardly touched the breakfast
Maggie had quietly put upon the chair while he had been reading, but
sank back and, his eyes on the ceiling with its circle of clustered
grapes, began to go over the situation.
At the end of a few minutes he was interrupted by Ferdinand, whom Maggie
had sent in with a letter that had just been delivered by a messenger.
Tom took it mechanically, then eagerly tore open the envelope. The
letter was from the detective agency, and its greater part was the
report of the observations made the previous evening by the detectives
detailed to watch Mr. Baxter. Tom read it through repeatedly. It brought
Foley's whispered words flashing back upon him: "I give it to youse for
what it's worth; Baxter started this trick." He began slowly to
understand.
But before he had fully mastered the situation there was a loud knock at
the hall door. Maggie opened it, and Tom heard a hearty voice sound out:
"Good-mornin', Mrs. Keating. How's your husband?"
"You'll find him in the front room, Mrs. Barry," Maggie answered. "All
of you go right in."
There was the sound of several feet, and then Mrs. Barry came in and
after her Barry and Pete. "Say, Tom, I'm just tickled to death!" she
cried, with a smile of ruddy delight. She held out a stubby, pillowy
hand and shook Tom's till her black straw hat, that the two preceding
summers had done their best to turn brown, was bobbing over one ear.
"Every rib I've got is laughin'. How're you feelin'?"
"First rate, except for my ankle. How're you, boys?" He shook hands with
Barry and Pete.
"Well, you want to lay still as a bed-slat for a week or two. A sprain
ain't nothin' to monkey with, I tell you what. Mrs. Keating, you see't
your husband keeps still."
"Yes," said Maggie, setting chairs for the three about the couch, and
herself slipping into one at the couch's foot.
Mrs. Barry sank back, breathing heavily, and wiped her moist face. "I
said to the men this mornin' that I'd give 'em their breakfast, but I
wouldn't wash a dish till I'd been over to see you. Tom, you've come out
on top, all right! An' nobody's gladder'n me. Unless, o' course, your
wife."
Maggie gave a little nod, and her hands clasped each other in her lap.
"It's easy to guess how proud you must be o' your man!" Mrs. Barry's red
face beamed with sympathetic exultation.
Maggie gulped; her strained lips parted: "Of course I'm proud."
"I wish you could 'a' heard the boys last night, Tom," cried Pete. "Are
they for you? Well, I should say! You'll be made walkin' delegate at the
very next meetin', sure."
"Well, I'd like to know what else they could do?" Mrs. Barry demanded
indignantly. "With him havin' fought an' sacrificed as he has for 'em!"
"He can have anything he wants now. Tokens of appreciation? They'll be
givin' you a gold watch an' chain for every pocket."
"But what'll they think after they've read the papers?" asked Tom.
"I saw how the bosses' fairy story goes. But the boys ain't kids, an'
they ain't goin' to swallow all that down. They'll think about the same
as me, an' I think them bosses ain't such holy guys as they say they
are. I think there was somethin' else we don't know nothin' about, or
else the bosses'd 'a' gone right through with the game. An' the boys'll
not give credit to a boss when they can give credit to a union man. You
can bet your false teeth on that. Anyhow, Tom, you could fall a big
bunch o' miles an' still be in heaven."
"Now, the strike, Tom; what d'you think about the strike?" Mrs. Barry
asked.
Before Tom could answer there was another knock. Maggie slipped away and
ushered in Petersen, who hung back abashed at this gathering.
"Hello, Petersen," Tom called out. "Come in. How are you?"
Petersen advanced into the room, took a chair and sat holding his derby
hat on his knees with both hands. "I be purty good,--oh, yah," he
answered, smiling happily. "I be movin' to-day."
"Where?" Tom asked. "But you haven't met Mrs. Barry, have you?"
"Glad to know you, Mr. Petersen." Mrs. Barry held out her hand, and
Petersen, without getting up, took it in his great embarrassed fist.
She turned quickly about on Tom. "What d'you think about the strike?"
she repeated.
"Yes, what about it?" echoed Barry and Pete.
"We're going to win it," Tom answered, with quiet confidence.
"You think so?"
"I do. We're going to win--certain!"
"If you do, we women'll all take turns kissin' your shoes."
"You'll be, all in a jump, the biggest labor leader in New York City!"
cried Pete. "What, to put Buck Foley out o' business, an' to win a
strike after the union had give it up!"
Within Tom responded to this by a wild exultation, but he maintained an
outward calm. "Don't lay it on so thick, Pete."
He stole a glance at Maggie. She was very pale. Her eyes, coming up from
her lap, met his. She rose abruptly.
"I must see to my work," she said, and hurried into the kitchen.
Tom's eyes came back to his friends. "Have you boys heard anything about
Foley?"
"He ain't been caught yet," answered Pete.
"He'll never be," Tom declared. Then after a moment's thought he went
on with conviction: "Boys, if Foley had had a fair start and had been
honest, he'd have been the biggest thing that ever happened in the labor
world."
Their loyalty prompted the others to take strong exception to this.
"No, I wouldn't have been in his class," Tom said decidedly, and led the
talk to the probabilities of the next few days. They chatted on for half
an hour longer, then all four departed. Pete, however, turned at the
door and came back.
"I almost forgot, Tom. There was something else. O' course you didn't
hear about Johnson. You know there's been someone in the union--more'n
one, I bet--that's been keepin' the bosses posted on all we do. Well,
Johnson got himself outside o' more'n a few last night, an' began to get
in some lively jaw-work. The boys got on from what he said that he'd
been doin' the spy business for a long time--that he'd seen Baxter just
before the meetin'. Well, a few things happened right then an' there. I
won't tell you what, but I got an idea Johnson sorter thinks this ain't
just the health resort for his kind o' disease."
Tom said nothing. Here was confirmation of, and addition to, one
sentence in the detectives' report.
Pete had been gone hardly more than a minute when he was back for the
third time. "Say, Tom, guess where Petersen's movin'?" he called out
from the dining-room door.
"I never can."
"On the floor above! A wagon load o' new furniture just pulled up down
in front. I met Petersen an' his wife comin' in. Petersen was carryin'
a bran' new baby carriage."
Pete's news had immediate corroboration. As he was going out Tom heard a
thin voice ask, "Is Mr. Keating in?" and heard Maggie answer, "Go right
through the next door;" and there was Mrs. Petersen, her child in her
arms, coming radiantly toward him.
"Bless you, brother!" she said. "I've heard all about your glorious
victory. I could hardly wait to come over an' tell you how glad I am.
I'd 'a' come with Nels, but I wasn't ready an' he had to hurry here to
be ready to look after the furniture when it come. I'm so glad! But
things had to come out that way. The Lord never lets sin
prevail!--praise His name!"
"Won't you sit down, Mrs. Petersen?" Tom said, in some embarrassment,
relinquishing the slight hand she had given him.
"I can't stop a minute, we're so busy. You must come up an' see us. I
pray God'll prosper you in your new work, an' make you a power for
right. Good-by."
As she passed through the dining-room Tom heard her thin vibrant voice
sound out again: "You ought to be the proudest an' happiest woman in
America, Mrs. Keating." There was no answer, and Tom heard the door
close.
In a few minutes Maggie came in and stood leaning against the back of
one of the chairs. "Tom," she said; and her voice was forced and
unnatural.
Tom knew that the scene he had been expecting so long was now at hand.
"Yes," he answered, in a kind of triumphant dread.
She did not speak at once, but stood looking down on him, her throat
pulsing, her face puckered in its effort to be immobile. "Well, it was
about time something of this sort was happening. You know what I've had
to put up with in the last five months. I suppose you think I ought to
beg your pardon. But you know what I said, I said because I thought it
was to our interest to do that. And you know if we'd done what I said
we'd never have seen the hard times we have."
"I suppose not," Tom admitted, with a dull sinking of his heart.
She stood looking down on him for a moment longer, then turned abruptly
about and went into the kitchen. These five sentences were her only
verbal acknowledgment that she had been wrong, and her only verbal
apology. She felt much more than this--grudgingly, she was proud that he
had succeeded, she was proud that others praised him, she was pleased at
the prospect of better times--but more than this she could not bend to
admit.
While Tom lay on the couch reasoning himself into a fuller and fuller
understanding of Mr. Baxter's part in last night's events, out in the
kitchen Maggie's resentment over having been proved wrong was slowly
disappearing under the genial influence of thoughts of the better days
ahead. Her mind ran with eagerness over the many things that could be
done with the thirty-five dollars a week Tom would get as walking
delegate--new dresses, better than she had ever had before; new things
for the house; a better table. And she thought of the social elevation
Tom's new importance in the union would give her. She forgot her
bitterness. She became satisfied; then exultant; then, unconsciously,
she began humming.
Presently her new pride had an unexpected gratification. In the midst of
her dreams there was a rapping at the hall door. Opening it she found
before her a man she had seen only once--Tom had pointed him out to her
one Sunday when they had walked on Fifth Avenue--but she recognized him
immediately.
"Is Mr. Keating at home?" the man asked.
"Yes." Maggie, awed and embarrassed, led the way into the sitting-room.
"Mr. Keating," said the man, in a quiet, even voice.
"Mr. Baxter!" Tom ejaculated.
"I saw in the papers this morning that you were hurt. Thank you very
much, Mrs. Keating." He closed the door after Maggie had withdrawn, as
though paying her a courtesy by the act, and sat down in the chair she
had pushed beside the couch for him. "Your injury is not serious, I
hope."
Tom regarded the contractor with open amazement. "No," he managed to
say. "It will keep me in the house for a while, though."
"I thought so, and that's why I came. I saw from the papers that you
would doubtless be the next leader of the union. As you know, it is
highly important to both sides that we come to an agreement about the
strike as early as possible. It seemed to me desirable that you and I
have a chat first and arrange for a meeting of our respective
committees. And since I knew you could not come to see me, I have come
to see you."
Mr. Baxter delivered these prepared sentences smoothly, showing his
white teeth in a slight smile. This was the most plausible reason his
brain had been able to lay hold of to explain his coming. And come he
must, for he had a terrifying dread that Tom knew the facts he was
trying to keep from the public. It had taxed his ingenuity frightfully
that morning to make an explanation to his wife that would clear
himself. If Tom did know, and were to speak--there would be public
disgrace, and no explaining to his wife.
Tom's control came back to him, and he was filled with a sudden exultant
sense of mastery over this keen, powerful man. "It is of course
desirable that we settle the strike as soon as possible," he agreed
calmly, not revealing that he recognized Mr. Baxter's explanation to be
a fraud.
"It certainly will be a relief to us to deal with a man of integrity. I
think we have both had not very agreeable experiences with one whose
strong point was not his honor."
"Yes."
There was that in Mr. Baxter's manner which was very near frank
cordiality. "Has it not occurred to you as somewhat remarkable, Mr.
Keating, that both of us, acting independently, have been working to
expose Mr. Foley?"
Tom had never had the patience necessary to beat long about the bush. He
was master, and he swept Mr. Baxter's method aside. "The sad feature of
both our efforts," he said calmly, but with fierce joy, "has been that
we have failed, so far, to expose the chief villain."
The corners of Mr. Baxter's mouth twitched the least trifle, but when he
spoke he showed the proper surprise. "Have we, indeed! Whom do you
mean?"
Tom looked him straight in the eyes. "I wonder if you'd care to know
what I think of you?"
"That's an unusual question. But--it might be interesting."
"I think you are an infernal hypocrite!--and a villain to boot!"
"What?" Mr. Baxter sprang to his feet, trying to look angry and amazed.
"Sit down, Mr. Baxter," Tom said quietly. "That don't work with me. I'm
on to you. We got Foley, but you're the man we've failed to expose--so
far."
Mr. Baxter resumed his chair, and for an instant looked with piercing
steadiness at Tom's square face.
"What do you know?--think you know?"
"I'll tell you, be glad to, for I want you to know I'm thoroughly on to
you. You suggested this scheme to Foley, and it wasn't a scheme to catch
Foley, but to cheat the union." And Tom went on to outline the parts of
the story Mr. Baxter had withheld from the newspapers.
"That sounds very interesting, Mr. Keating," Mr. Baxter said, his lips
trembling back from his teeth. "But even supposing that were true, it
isn't evidence."
"I didn't say it was--though part of it is. But suppose I gave to the
papers what I've said to you? Suppose I made this point: if Baxter had
really intended to trap Foley, wouldn't he have had him arrested the
minute after the money had been turned over, so that he would have stood
in no danger of losing the money, and so Foley would have been caught
with the goods on? And suppose I presented these facts: Mr. Baxter had
tickets bought for 'The Maid of Mexico,' and was on the point of leaving
for the theater with his wife when a union man, his spy, who had learned
of my plan to expose the scheme, came to his house and told him I was on
to the game and was going to expose it. Mr. Baxter suddenly decides not
to go to the theater, and rushes off to the District Attorney with his
story of having trapped Foley. Suppose I said these things to the
papers--they'd be glad to get 'em, for it's as good a story as the one
this morning--what'd people be saying about you to-morrow? They'd say
this: Up to the time he heard from his spy Baxter had no idea of going
to the District Attorney. He was in the game for all it was worth, and
only went to the District Attorney when he saw it was his only chance to
save himself. They'd size you up for what you are--a briber and a liar!"
A faint tinge of color showed in Mr. Baxter's white cheeks. "I see
you're a grafter, too!" he said, yielding to an uncontrollable desire to
strike back. "Well--what's _your_ price?"
Tom sat bolt upright and glared at the contractor.
"Damn you!" he burst out. "If it wasn't for this ankle, I'd kick you out
of the room, and down to the street, a kick to every step! Now you get
out of here!--and quick!"
"I'm always glad to leave the presence of a blackmailer, my dear sir."
Mr. Baxter turned with a bow and went out.
Tom, in a fury, swung his feet off the couch and started to rise, only
to sink back with a groan.
At the door of the flat Mr. Baxter thought of the morrow, of what the
public would say, of what his wife would say. He came back, closed the
door, and stood looking steadily down on Tom. "Well--what are you going
to do about it?"
"Give it to the papers, that's what!"
"Suppose you do, and suppose a few persons believe it. Suppose, even,
people say what you think they will. What then? You will have given
your--ah--your information away, and how much better off are you for
it?"
"Blackmailer, did you call me!"
Mr. Baxter did not heed the exclamation, but continued to look steadily
downward, waiting.
A little while before Tom had been thinking vaguely of the possible use
he could make of his power over Mr. Baxter. With lowered gaze, he now
thought clearly, rapidly. The moral element of the situation did not
appeal to him as strongly at that moment as did the practical. If he
exposed Mr. Baxter it would bring himself great credit and prominence,
but what material benefit would that exposure bring the union? Very
little. Would it be right then for him, the actual head of the union,
to use an advantage for his self-glorification that could be turned to
the profit of the whole union?
After a minute Tom looked up. "No, I shall not give this to the
newspapers. I'm going to use it otherwise--as a lever to get from you
bosses what belongs to us. I hate to dirty my hands by using such means;
but in fighting men of your sort we've got to take every advantage we
get. If I had a thief by the throat I'd hardly let go so we could fight
fair. I wouldn't be doing the square thing by the union if I refused to
use an advantage of this sort."
He paused an instant and looked squarely into Mr. Baxter's eyes. "Yes, I
have a price, and here it is. We're going to win this strike. You
understand?"
"I think I do."
"Well?"
"You are very modest in your demands,"--sarcastically. Tom did not heed
the remark.
Mr. Baxter half closed his eyes and thought a moment. "What guarantee
have I of your silence?"
"My word."
"Nothing else?"
"Nothing else."
Mr. Baxter was again silent for a thoughtful moment.
"Well?" Tom demanded.
Mr. Baxter's face gave a faint suggestion that a struggle was going on
within. Then his little smile came out, and he said:
"Permit me to be the first to congratulate you, Mr. Keating, on having
won the strike."
Chapter XXXII
THE THORN OF THE ROSE
Shortly after lunch Mr. Driscoll called Ruth into his office. "Dr. Hall
has just sent me word that he wants to meet the building committee on
important business this afternoon, so if you'll get ready we'll start
right off."
A few minutes later the two were on a north-bound Broadway car.
Presently Mr. Driscoll blinked his bulging eyes thoughtfully at his
watch. "I want to run in and see Keating a minute sometime this
afternoon," he remarked. "He's just been doing some great work, Miss
Arnold. If we hurry we've got time to crowd it in now." A pudgy
forefinger went up into the air. "Oh, conductor--let us off here!"
Before Ruth had recovered the power to object they were out of the car
and walking westward through a narrow cross street. Her first frantic
impulse was to make some hurried excuse and turn back. She could not
face him again!--and in his own home!--never! But a sudden fear
restrained this impulse: to follow it might reveal to Mr. Driscoll the
real state of affairs, or at least rouse his suspicions. She had to go;
there was nothing else she could do. And so she walked on beside her
employer, all her soul pulsing and throbbing.
Soon a change began to work within her--the reassertion of her love. She
would have avoided the meeting if she could, but now fate was forcing
her into it. She abandoned herself to fate's irresistible arrangement. A
wild, excruciating joy began to possess her. She was going to see him
again!
But in the last minute there came a choking revulsion of feeling. She
could not go up--she could not face him. Her mind, as though it had been
working all the time beneath her consciousness, presented her instantly
with a natural plan of avoiding the meeting. She paused at the stoop of
Tom's tenement. "I'll wait here till you come down, or walk about the
block," she said.
"All right; I'll be gone only a few minutes," returned the unobservant
Mr. Driscoll. He mounted the stoop, but drew aside at the door to let a
woman with a boy come out, then entered. Ruth's glance rested upon the
woman and child, and she instinctively guessed who they were, and her
conjecture was instantly made certain knowledge by a voice from a window
addressing the woman as Mrs. Keating. She gripped the iron hand-rail
and, swaying, stared at Maggie as she stood chatting on the top step.
Her fixed eyes photographed the cheap beauty of Maggie's face, and her
supreme insight, the gift of the moment, took the likeness of Maggie's
soul. She gazed at Maggie with tense, white face, lips parted, hardly
breathing, all wildness within, till Maggie started to turn from her
neighbor. Then she herself turned about and walked dizzily away.
In the meantime Mr. Driscoll had gained Tom's flat and was knocking on
the door. When Maggie had gone out--the silent accusation of Tom's
presence irked her so, she was glad to escape it for an hour or two--she
had left the door unlocked that Tom might have no trouble in admitting
possible callers. Mr. Driscoll entered in response to Tom's "Come in,"
and crossed heavily into the sitting-room. "Hello there! How are you?"
he called out, taking Tom's hand in a hearty grasp.
"Why, Mr. Driscoll!" Tom exclaimed, with a smile of pleasure.
Mr. Driscoll sank with a gasp into a chair beside the couch. "Well, I
suppose you think you're about everybody," he said with a genial glare.
"Of course you think I ought to congratulate you. Well, I might as well,
since that's one thing I came here for. I do congratulate you, and I
mean it."
He again grasped Tom's hand. "I've been thinking of the time, about five
months ago, when you stood in my office and called me a coward and a few
other nice things, and said you were going to put Foley out of business.
I didn't think you could do it. But you have! You've done a mighty big
thing."
He checked himself, but his discretion was not strong enough to force
him to complete silence, nor to keep a faint suggestion of mystery out
of his manner. "And you deserve a lot more credit than you're getting.
You've done a lot more than people think you have--than you yourself
think you have. If you knew what I know----!"
He nodded his head, with one eye closed. "There's some people I'd back
any day to beat the devil. Well, well! And so you're to be walking
delegate, hey? That's what I hear."
"I understand the boys are talking about electing me."
"Well, if you come around trying to graft off me, or calling strikes on
my jobs, there'll be trouble--I tell you that."
"I'll make you an exception. I'll not graft off you, and I'll let you
work scabs and work 'em twenty-four hours a day, if you want to."
"I know how!" Mr. Driscoll mopped his face again. "I came around here,
Keating, to say about three things to you. I wanted to congratulate you,
and that I've done. And I wanted to tell you the latest in the Avon
affair. I heard just before I left the office that those thugs of
Foley's, hearing that he'd skipped and left 'em in the lurch, had
confessed that you didn't have a thing to do with the Avon
explosion--that Foley'd put them up to it, and so on. It'll be in the
papers this afternoon. Even if your case comes to trial, you'll be
discharged in a minute. The other thing----"
"Mr. Driscoll----" Tom began gratefully.
Mr. Driscoll saw what was coming, and rushed on at full speed. "The
other thing is this: I'm speaking serious now, and just as your father
might, and it's for your own good, and nothing else. What I've got to
say is, get out of the union. You're too good for it. A man's got to do
the best he can for himself in this world; it's his duty to make a place
for himself. And what are you doing for yourself in the union? Nothing.
They've turned you down, and turned you down hard, in the last few
months. It's all hip-hip-hurrah for you to-day, but they'll turn you
down again just as soon as they get a chance. Mark what I say! Now
here's the thing for you to do. You can get out of the union now with
glory. Get out, and take the job I offered you five months ago. Or a
better one, if you want it."
"I can't tell you how much I thank you, Mr. Driscoll," said Tom. "But
that's all been settled before. I can't."
"Now you see here!"--and Mr. Driscoll leaned forward and with the help
of a gesticulating fist launched into an emphatic presentation of "an
old man's advice" on the subject of looking out for number one.
While he had been talking Ruth had walked about the block in dazing
pain, and now she had been brought back to the tenement door by the
combined strength of love and duty. During the last two weeks she had
often wished that she might speak a moment with Tom, to efface the
impression she had given him on that tragic evening when they had been
last together, that knowing him could mean to her only great pain. That
she should tell him otherwise, that she should yield him the forgiveness
she had withheld, had assumed to her the seriousness of a great debt she
must discharge. The present was her best chance--perhaps she could see
him for a moment alone. And so, duty justifying love, she entered the
tenement and mounted the stairs.
Tom's "Come in!" answered her knock. Clutching her self-control in both
her hands, she entered. At sight of her Tom rose upon his elbow, then
sank back, as pale as she, his fingers turned into his palms.
"Mr. Keating," she said, with the slightest of bows, and lowered herself
into a chair by the door.
He could merely incline his head.
"You got tired waiting, did you," said Mr. Driscoll, who had turned his
short-sighted eyes about at her entrance. "I'll be through in just a
minute." He looked back at Tom, and could but notice the latter's white,
set face. "Why, what's the matter?"
"I twisted my ankle a bit; it's nothing," Tom answered.
Mr. Driscoll went on with his discourse, to ears that now heard not a
word. Ruth glanced about the room. The high-colored sentimental
pictures, the cheap showy furniture, the ornaments on the
mantelpiece--all that she saw corroborated the revelation she had had of
Maggie's character. Inspiration in neither wife nor home. Thus he had to
live, who needed inspiration--whom inspiration and sympathy would help
develop to a fitness for great ends. Thus he had to live!--dwarfed!
She filled with frantic rebellion in his behalf. Surely it did not have
to be so, always. Surely the home could be changed, the wife roused to
sympathy--a little--at least a little!... There must be a way! Yes, yes;
surely. There must be a way!... Later, somehow, she would find it....
In this moment of upheaving ideas and emotions she had the first vague
stirring of a new purpose--the very earliest conception of the part she
was to play in the future, the part of an unseen and unrecognized
influence. She was brought out of her chaotic thoughts by Mr. Driscoll
rising from his chair and saying: "There's no turning a fool from his
folly, I suppose. Well, we'd better be going, Miss Arnold."
She rose, too. Her eyes and Tom's met. He wondered, choking, if she
would speak to him.
"Good-by, Mr. Keating," she said--and that was all.
"Good-by, Miss Arnold."
With a great sinking, as though all were going from beneath him, he
watched her go out ... heard the outer door close ... and lay exhausted,
gazing wide-eyed at the door frame in which he had last seen her.
A minute passed so, and then his eyes, falling, saw a pair of gray silk
gloves on the table just before him. They were hers. He had risen upon
his elbow with the purpose of getting to the table, by help of a chair
back, and securing them, when he heard the hall door open gently and
close. He sank back upon the couch.
The next minute he saw her in the doorway again, pale and with a
composure that was the balance between paroxysm and supreme repression.
She paused there, one hand against the frame, and then walked up to the
little table. "I came back for my gloves," she said, picking them up.
"Yes," his lips whispered, his eyes fastened on her white face.
But she did not go. She stood looking down upon him, one hand resting on
the table, the other on a chair back. "I left my gloves on purpose;
there is something I want to say to you," she said, with her tense calm.
"You remember--when I saw you last--I practically said that knowing you
could in the future mean nothing to me but pain. I do not feel so now.
Knowing you has given me inspiration. There is nothing for me to
forgive--but if it means anything to you ... I forgive you."
Tom could only hold his eyes on her pale face.
"And I want to congratulate you," she went on. "I know how another is
getting the praise that belongs to you. I know how much more you deserve
than is being given you."
"Chance helped me much--at the end."
"It is the man who is always striving that is ready for the chance when
it comes," she returned.
Tom, lying back, gazing fixedly up into her dark eyes, could not gather
hold of a word. The gilded clock counted off several seconds.
"Mr. Driscoll is waiting for me," she said, in a voice that was weaker
and less forcedly steady. She had not changed her position all the time
she had spoken. Her arms now dropped to her side, and she moved back
ever so little.
"I hope ... you'll be happy ... always," she said.
"Yes ... and I hope you...."
"Good-by."
"Good-by."
Their eyes held steadfastly to each other for a moment; she seemed to
waver, and she caught the back of a chair; then she turned and went
out....
For long he watched the door out of which she had gone; then, heedless
of the pain, he rolled over and stared at one great poppy in the back of
the couch.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Obvious typographical and printer errors have been corrected without
comment.
In addition to obvious errors, the following changes have been made:
Page 26: "virture" changed to "virtue" in the phrase, "... had
the virtue of being terse...."
Page 53: The word "you" was added to the phrase, "How do you
propose...."
Page 178: "disppeared" changed to "disappeared" in the phrase,
"... they had disappeared...."
Page 209: "filliped" changed to "flipped" in the phrase, "...
contemptuously flipped his half-smoked cigar...."
Page 320: "tremenduous" changed to "tremendous" in the phrase,
"... a tremendous uproar...."
Other than the above, no effort has been made to standardize internal
inconsistencies in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar, etc.
The author's usage is preserved as found in the original publication.
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