TThe 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 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 Isincerely 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.
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 Isincerely 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, hadchosen 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 forthe 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'mfor 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 thedistrict 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."
PETERSEN'S SIN
TThe 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.
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 committeemeetin', 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, thewomen, 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. Hehad 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 controlof 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. Buthow 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 strainin 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 notto 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 heknew 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.
THE THOUSANDTH CHANCE
MMr. 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."
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 takein 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.
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 himbeside 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.
THE EXPOSURE