IIt 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.
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 theback 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.
THE ENTERTAINMENT COMMITTEE
DDuring 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.
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 thetelling; 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 maidbrought 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, withthe 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, andSmoky 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 Jakehad 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 possessionof 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.
THE STOLEN STRIKE
TTom 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.
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 inthe 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 Foleyhad 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.
FOLEY TASTES REVENGE