The secretary looked with hardly-concealed admiration at Tom, still splendid in the dying glow of his defiant wrath. "If I objected, I'd deserve to be fired," she said. Then she added, smiling: "You may say it again if you like."
After Miss Arnold had gone out Mr. Driscoll looked at Tom with blinking eyes. "I suppose you think you're some sort of a hero," he growled.
Tom's sudden confusion had collapsed his indignation. "No, I'm a man looking for a job," he returned, with a faint smile.
"Well, I'm glad you didn't take the job I offered you. I can't afford to let fools help manage my business."
Tom took his hat. "I suppose this is all," he said and started for the door.
"Hold on!" Mr. Driscoll stood up. "Why don't you shake hands with a man, like a gentleman? There. That's the stuff. I want to say to you, Keating, that I think you're just about all right. If ever you want a job with me, just come around and say so and I'll give you one if I have to fire myself to make a place for you. And if your money gives out, or you need some to use in your fight, why I ain't throwing much away these days, but you can get all you want by asking for it."
His dismissal had been one of the risks Tom had accepted when he had decided upon war, and though he felt it keenly now that it had come, yet its chief effect was to intensify his resolution to overturn Buck Foley. He strode on block after block, with his long, powerful steps, his resolution gripping him fiercer and fiercer, – till the thought leaped into his mind: "I've got to tell Maggie."
He stopped as though a cold hand had been laid against his heart; then walked on more slowly, considering how he should give the news to her. His first thought was to say nothing of his dismissal for a few days. By then he might have found another job, and the telling that he had lost one would be an easy matter. But his second thought was that she would doubtless learn the news from some of her friends, and would use her tongue all the more freely because of his attempt at concealment; and, furthermore, he would be in the somewhat inglorious position of the man who has been found out. He decided to have done with it at once.
When he entered his flat Maggie looked up in surprise from the tidy on which she was working. "What! home already!" Then she noticed his face. "Why, what's the matter?"
Tom drew off his overcoat and threw it upon the couch. "I've been fired."
She looked at him in astonishment. "Fired!"
"Yes." He sat down, determined to get through with the scene as quickly as possible.
For the better part of a minute she could not speak. "Fired? What for?" she articulated.
"It's Foley's work. He ordered Driscoll to."
"You've been talking about Foley some more, then?"
"I have."
Tom saw what he had feared, a hard, accusing look spread itself over her face. "And you've done that, Tom Keating, after what I, your wife, said to you only last week? I told you what would happen. I told you Foley would make us suffer. I told you not to talk again, and you've gone and done it!" The words came out slowly, sharply, as though it were her desire to thrust them into him one by one.
Tom began to harden, as she had hardened. But at least he would give her the chance to understand him. "You know what Foley's like. You know some of the things he's done. Well, I've made up my mind that we oughtn't to stand him any longer. I'm going to do what I can to drive him out of the union."
"And you've been talking this?" she cut in. "Oh, of course you have! No wonder he got you fired! Oh, my God! I see it all. And you, you never thought once of your wife or your child!"
"I did, and you'll see when I tell you all," Tom said harshly. "But would you have me stand for all the dirty things he does?"
"Couldn't you keep out of his way – as I asked you to? Because a wolf's a wolf, that's no reason why you should jump in his mouth."
"It is if you can do him up. And I'm going to do Foley up. I'm going to run against him as walking delegate. The situation ain't so bad as you think," he went on, with a weak effort to appease her. "You think things look dark, but they're going to be brighter than they ever were. I'll get another job soon, and after the first of March I'll be walking delegate. I'm going to beat Buck Foley, sure!"
For a moment the vision of an even greater elevation than the one from which they were falling made her forget her bitter wrath. Then it flooded back upon her, and she put it all into a laugh. "You beat Buck Foley! Oh, my!"
Her ireful words he had borne with outward calm; he had learned they were borne more easily, if borne calmly. But her sneering disbelief in him was too much. He sprang up, his wrath tugging at its leash. She, too, came to her feet, and stood facing him, hands clenched, breast heaving, sneering, sobbing. Her words tumbled out.
"Oh, you! you! Brighter days, you say. Ha! ha! You beat Buck Foley? Yes, I know how! Buck Foley'll not let you get a job in your trade. You'll have to take up some other work – if you can get it! Begin all over! We'll grow poorer and poorer. We'll have to eat anything. I'll have to wear rags. Just when we were getting comfortable. And all because you wouldn't pay any attention to what I said. Because you were such a fo-o-ol! Oh, my God! My God!"
As she went on her voice rose to a scream, broken by gasps and sobs. At the end she passionately jerked Tom's coat and hat from the couch and threw herself upon it – and the frenzied words tumbled on, and on.
Tom looked down upon her a moment, quivering with wrath and a nameless sickness. Then he picked up hat and coat, and glancing at Ferdinand, who had shrunk terrified into a corner, walked quickly out of the flat.
He strode about the streets awhile, had dinner in a restaurant, and then, as Wednesday was the union's meeting night, he went to Potomac Hall. It fell out that he met Pete and Barry entering as he came up.
"I guess you'll have another foreman to-morrow, boys," he announced; and he briefly told them of his discharge.
"It'll be us next, Rivet Head," said Pete.
Barry nodded, his face pale.
All the men in the hall learned that evening what had happened to Tom, some from his friends, more from Foley's friends. And the manner of the latter's telling was a warning to every listener. "D'you hear Keating has been fired?" "Fired? No. What for?" A wise wink: "Well, he's been talkin' about Foley, you know."
Tom grew hot under, but ignored, the open jeering of the Foleyites. The sympathy of his friends he answered with a quiet, but ominous, "Just you wait!" There were few present of the men he had counted on seeing, and soon after the meeting ended, which was unusually early, he started home.
It was after ten when he came in. Maggie sat working at the tidy; she did not look up or speak; her passion had settled into resentful obstinacy, and that, he knew from experience, only time could overcome. He had not the least desire to assist time in its work of subjection, and passed straight into their bedroom.
Tom felt her sustained resentment, as indeed he could not help; but he did not feel that which was the first cause of the resentment – her lack of sympathetic understanding of him. At twenty-three he had come into a man's wages, and Maggie's was the first pretty face he had seen after that. The novelty of their married life had soon worn off, and with the development of his stronger qualities and of her worst ones, it had gradually come about that the only thoughts they shared were those concerning their common existence in their home. Tom had long since become accustomed to carrying his real ideas to other ears. And so he did not now consciously miss wifely sympathy with his efforts.
There was no break the next morning in Maggie's sullen resentment. After an almost wordless breakfast Tom set forth to look for another job. An opening presented itself at the first place he called. "Yes, it happens we do need a foreman," said the contractor. "What experience have you had?"
Tom gave an outline of his course in his trade, dwelling on the last two years and a half that he had been a foreman.
"Um, – yes. That sounds very good. You say you worked last for Driscoll on the St. Etienne job?"
"Yes."
"I suppose you don't mind telling why you left? Driscoll hasn't finished that job yet."
Tom briefly related the circumstances.
"So you're out with Foley." The contractor shook his head. "Sorry. We need a man, and I guess you're a good one. But if Foley did that to Driscoll, he'll do the same to me. I can't afford to be mixed up in any trouble with him."
This conversation was a more or less accurate pattern of many that followed on this and succeeding days. Tom called on every contractor of importance doing steel construction work. None of them cared to risk trouble with Foley, and so Tom continued walking the streets.
One contractor – the man for whom he had worked before he went on the St. Etienne job – offered Tom what he called some "business advice." "I'm a pretty good friend of yours, Keating, for I've found you all on the level. The trouble with you is, when you see a stone wall you think it was put there to butt your head against. Now, I'm older than you are, and had a lot more experience, and let me tell you it's a lot easier, and a lot quicker, when you see trouble across your path like a stone wall, to go round it than it is to try to butt it out of your way. Stop butting against Foley. Make up with him, or go to some other city. Go round him."
In the meantime Tom was busy with his campaign against Foley. He was discharged on the fourteenth of February; the election came on the seventh of March; only three weeks, so haste was necessary. On the days he was tramping about for a job he met many members of the union also looking for work, and to these he talked wherever he found them. And every night he was out talking to the men, in the streets, in saloons, in their own homes.
The problem of his campaign was a simple one – to get at least five hundred of the three thousand members of the union to come to the hall on election night and cast their votes against Foley. His campaign, therefore, could have no spectacular methods and no spectacular features. Hard, persistent work, night after night – that was all.
On the evening after the meeting and on the following evening Tom had talks with several leading men in the union. A few joined in his plan with spirit. But most that he saw held back; they were willing to help him in secret, but they feared the result of an open espousal of his cause. There were only a dozen men, including Barry and Pete, who were willing to go the whole way with him, and these he formed loosely into a campaign committee. They held a caucus and nominations for all offices were made, Tom being chosen to run for walking delegate and president. The presidency was unsalaried, and during Foley's régime had become an office of only nominal importance; all real power that had ever belonged to the position had been gradually absorbed by the office of walking delegate. At the meeting on the twenty-first Tom's ticket was formally presented to the union, as was also Foley's.
Even before this the dozen were busy with a canvass of the union. The members agreed heartily to the plan of demanding an increase in wages, for they had long been dissatisfied with the present scale. But to come out against Foley, that was another matter. Tom found, as he had expected, that his arguments had to be directed, not at convincing the men that Foley was bad, but at convincing them it was safe to oppose him. Reformers are accustomed to explain their failure by saying they cannot arouse the respectable element to come out and vote against corruption. They would find that even fewer would come to the polls if the voters thereby endangered their jobs.
The answers of the men in almost all cases were the same.
"If I was sure I wouldn't lose my job, I'd vote against Foley in a minute. But you know well enough, Tom, that we have a hard enough time getting on now. Where'd we be if Foley blacklisted us?"
"But there's no danger at all, if enough of us come out," Tom would reply. "We can't lose."
"But you can't count on the boys coming out. And if we lose, Foley'll make us all smart. He'll manage to find out every man that voted against him."
Here was the place in which the guarantee he had sought from Mr. Baxter would fit in. Impelled by knowledge of the great value of this guarantee, Tom went to see the big contractor a few days after his first visit. The uniform traveled down the alley between the offices and brought back word that Mr. Baxter was not in. Tom called again and again. Mr. Baxter was always out. Tom was sorely disappointed by his failure to get the guarantee, but there was nothing to do but to make the best of it; and so he and his friends went on tirelessly with their nightly canvassing.
The days, of course, Tom continued to spend in looking for work. In wandering from contractor to contractor he frequently passed the building in which was located the office of Driscoll & Co.; and, a week after his discharge, as he was going by near one o'clock, it chanced Miss Arnold was coming into the street. They saw each other in the same instant. Tom, with his natural diffidence at meeting strange women, was for passing her by with a lift of his hat. "Why, Mr. Keating!" she cried, with a little smile, and as they held the same direction he could but fall into step with her.
"What's the latest war news?" she asked.
"One man still out of a job," he answered, taking refuge in an attempt at lightness. "No actual conflict yet. I'm busy massing my forces. So far I have one man together – myself."
"You ought to find that a loyal army." She was silent for a dozen paces, then asked impulsively: "Have you had lunch yet?"
Tom threw a surprised look down upon her. "Yes. Twelve o'clock's our noon hour. We men are used to having our lunch then."
"I thought if you hadn't we might have lunched in the same place," she hastened to explain, with a slight flush of embarrassment. "I wanted to ask you some questions. You see, since I've been in New York I've been in a way thrown in contact with labor unions. I've read a great deal on both sides. But the only persons I've had a chance to talk to have all been on the employers' side, – persons like Mr. Driscoll and my uncle, Mr. Baxter."
"Baxter, the contractor – Baxter & Co.?"
"Yes."
Tom wondered what necessity had forced the niece of so rich a man as Mr. Baxter to earn her living as a stenographer.
"I've often wanted to talk with some trade union man, but I've never had the chance. I thought you might tell me some of the things I want to know."
The note of sincere disappointment in Miss Arnold's voice brought a suggestion to Tom's mind that both embarrassed and attracted. He was not accustomed to the society of women of Miss Arnold's sort, whose order of life had been altogether different from his own, and the idea of an hour alone with her filled him with a certain confusion. But her freshness and her desire to know more of the subject that was his whole life allured him; and his interest was stronger than his embarrassment. "For that matter, I'm not busy, as you know. If you would like it, I can talk to you while you eat."
For the next hour they sat face to face in the quiet little restaurant to which Miss Arnold had led the way. The other patrons found themselves looking over at the table in the corner, and wondering what common subject could so engross the refined young woman in the tailored gown and the man in ill-fitting clothes, with big red hands, red neck and crude, square face. For their part these two were unconscious of the wondering eyes upon them. With a query now and then from Miss Arnold, Tom spiritedly presented the union side of mooted questions of the day, – the open shop, the strike, the sympathetic strike, the boycott. The things Miss Arnold had read had dealt coldly with the moral and economic principles involved in these questions. Tom spoke in human terms; he showed how every point affected living men, and women, and children. The difference was the difference between a treatise and life.
Miss Arnold was impressed, – not alone by what Tom said, but by the man himself. The first two or three times she had seen him, on his brief visits to the office, she had been struck only by a vague bigness – a bigness that was not so much of figure as of bearing. On his last visit she had been struck by his bold spirit. She now discovered the crude, rugged strength of the man: he had thought much; he felt deeply; he believed in the justice of his cause; he was willing, if the need might be, to suffer for his beliefs. And he spoke well, for his sentences, though not always grammatical, were always vital. He seemed to present the very heart of a thing, and let it throb before the eyes.
When they were in the street again and about to go their separate ways, Miss Arnold asked, with impulsive interest: "Won't you talk to me again about these things – some time?"
Tom, glowing with the excitement of his own words and of her sympathetic listening, promised. It was finally settled that he should call the following Sunday afternoon.
Back at her desk, Miss Arnold fell to wondering what sort of man Tom would be had he had four years at a university, and had his life been thrown among people of cultivation. His power, plus these advantages, would have made him – something big, to say the least. But had he gone to college he would not now be in a trade union. And in a trade union, Miss Arnold admitted to herself, was where he was needed, and where he belonged.
Tom went on his way in the elation that comes of a new and gratifying experience. He had never before had so keen and sympathetic a listener. And never before had he had speech with a woman of Miss Arnold's type – educated, thoughtful, of broad interests. Most of the women he had known necessity had made into household drudges – tired and uninteresting, whose few thoughts rarely ranged far from home. Miss Arnold was a discovery to him. Deep down in his consciousness was a distinct surprise that a woman should be interested in the big things of the outside world.
He was fairly jerked out of his elation, when, on turning a corner, he met Foley face to face in front of a skyscraper that was going up in lower Broadway. It was their first meeting since Foley had tried to have grim sport out of him on the St. Etienne Hotel.
Foley planted himself squarely across Tom's path. "Hello, Keating! How're youse? Where youse workin' now?"
The sneering good-fellowship in Foley's voice set Tom's blood a-tingling. But he tried to step to one side and pass on. Again Foley blocked his way.
"I understand youse're goin' to be the next walkin' delegate o' the union. That's nice. I s'pose these days youse're trainin' your legs for the job?"
"See here, Buck Foley, are you looking for a fight? If you are, come around to some quiet place and I'll mix it up with you all you want."
"I don't fight a man till he gets in my class."
"If you don't want to fight, then get out of my way!"
With that Tom stepped forward quickly and butted his hunched-out right shoulder against Foley's left. Foley, unprepared, swung round as though on a pivot. Tom brushed by and continued on his way with unturned head.
Again the walking delegate proved that he could swear.
Two days before his meeting with Miss Arnold Tom had been convinced that any more time was wasted that was spent in looking for a job as foreman. He had before him the choice of being idle or working in the gang. He disliked to do the latter, regarding it as a professional relapse. But he was unwilling to draw upon his savings, if that could be avoided, so he decided to go back into the ranks. The previous evening he had heard of three new jobs that were being started. The contractors on two of them he had seen during the morning; and after his encounter with Foley he set out to interview the third. The contractor was an employer of the smallest consequence – a florid man with little cunning eyes. "Yes, I do need some men," he replied to Tom's inquiry. "How much d'you want?"
"Three seventy-five a day, the regular rate."
The contractor shook his head. "Too much. I can only pay three."
"But you signed an agreement to pay the full rate!" Tom cried.
"Oh, a man signs a lot o' things."
Tom was about to turn away, when his curiosity got the better of his disgust. For a union man to work under the scale was an offense against the union. For an employer to pay under the scale was an offense against the employers' association. Tom decided to draw the contractor out. "Well, suppose I go to work at three dollars, how do we keep from being discovered?" he asked.
The little eyes gleamed with appreciation of their small cunning. "I make this agreement with all my men: You get the full amount in your envelope Saturday. Anybody that sees you open your envelope sees that you're gettin' full scale. Then you hand me back four-fifty later. That's for money I advanced you durin' the week. D'you understand?"
"I do," said Tom. "But I'm no three dollar man!"
"Hold on!" the contractor cried to Tom's back. His cunning told him in an instant that he had made a mistake; that this man, if let go, might make trouble. "I was just foolin' you. Of course, I'll pay you full rate."
Tom knew the man was lying, but he had no real proof that the contractor was breaking faith both with the union and his fellow employers; so, as he needed the money, he took the offered position and went to work the next morning. The job was a fire-engine house just being started on the upper west side of the island. The isolation of the job and the insignificance of the contractor made Tom feel there was a chance Foley might overlook him for the next two weeks.
On the following Saturday morning three new men began work on the job. One of them Tom was certain he knew – a tall, lank fellow, chiefly knobs and angles, with wide, drooping shoulders and a big yellow mustache. Tom left his place at the crane of the jimmy derrick and ran down a plank into the basement to where this man and four others were rolling a round column to its place.
He touched the man on the shoulder. "Your name's Petersen, ain't it?"
"Yah," said the big fellow.
"And you worked for a couple of days on the St. Etienne Hotel?"
"Yah."
Tom did his duty as prescribed by the union rules. He pointed out Petersen as a scab to the steward. Straightway the men crowded up and there was a rapid exchange of opinions. Tom and the steward wanted that a demand for Petersen's discharge be made of the contractor. But the others favored summary action, and made for where the big Swede was standing.
"Get out!" they ordered.
Petersen glowered at the crowd. "I lick de whole bunch!" he said with slow defiance.
The men were brought to a pause by his threatening attitude. His resentful eyes turned for an instant on Tom. The men began to move forward cautiously. Then the transformation that had taken place on the St. Etienne Hotel took place again. The courage faded from him, and he turned and started up the inclined plank for the street.
Jeers broke from the men. Caps and greasy gloves pelted Petersen's retreating figure. One man, the smallest of the gang, ran up the plank after him.
"Do him up, Kid!" the men shouted scrambling up to the sidewalk.
Kid, with showy valiance, aimed an upward blow at the Swede's head. Petersen warded off the fist with automatic ease, but made no attempt to strike back. He started away, walking sidewise, one eye on his path, one on his little assailant who kept delivering fierce blows that somehow failed to reach their mark.
"If he ain't runnin' from Kid!" ejaculated the men. "Good boy, Kid!"
The blows became faster and fiercer. At the corner Petersen turned back, held his foe at bay an instant, and a second time Tom felt the resentment of his eyes. Then he was driven around the corner. A minute later the little man came back, puffed out and swaggering.
"What an infernal coward!" the men marveled, as they went back to work.
That was a hard evening for Tom. He not only had to work for votes, but he met two or three lieutenants who were disheartened by the men's slowness to promise support, and to these friends he had to give new courage. Twice, as he was talking to men on the street, he glimpsed the tall, lean figure of Petersen, standing in a doorway as though waiting for someone.
The end of his exhausting evening's work found him near the Barrys', and he dropped in for an exchange of experiences. Barry and Pig Iron Pete had themselves come in but a few minutes before.
"Got work on your job for a couple more men?" asked Pete after the first words had been spoken.
"Hello! You haven't been fired?"
"That's it," answered Pete; and Barry nodded.
"Foley's work, I suppose?"
"Sure. Foley put Jake Henderson up to it. Oh, Jake makes a hot foreman! Driscoll ought to pay him ten a day to keep off the job. Jake complained against us an' got us fired. Said we didn't know our business."
"Well, it's only for another week, boys," Tom cheered them.
"If you think that then you've had better luck with the men than me 'n' Barry has," Pete declared in disgust. "They're a bunch o' old maids! Foley's too good for 'em. I don't see why we should try to force 'em to take somethin' better." The whole blankety-blanked outfit had Pete's permission to go where they didn't need a forge to heat their rivets.
"You don't understand 'em, Pete," returned Tom. "They've got to think first of all of how to earn a living for their families. Of course they're going to hesitate to do anything that will endanger their chance to earn a living. And you seem to forget that we've only got to get one man in five to win out."
"An' we've got to get him!" said Barry, almost fiercely.
"D'you think there's much danger of your losin', Tom?" Mrs. Barry queried anxiously.
"Not if we work. But we've got to work."
Mrs. Barry was silent for several moments, during which the talk of the men ran on. Suddenly, she broke in: "Don't you think the women'd have some influence with their husbands?"
Tom was silent for a thoughtful minute. "Some of them, mebbe."
"More'n you think, I bet!" Mrs. Barry declared. "It's worth tryin', anyhow. Here's what I'm goin' to do: I'm goin' to start out to-morrow an' begin visitin' all the union women I know. I can get the addresses of others from them. An' I'll keep at it every afternoon I can get away till the election. I'll talk to 'em good an' straight an' get 'em to talk to other women. An' we'll get a lot o' the men in line, see if we don't!"
Tom looked admiringly at Mrs. Barry's homely face, flushed with determination. "The surest thing we can do to win is to put you up for walking delegate. I'll hustle for you."
"Oh, g'wan with you, Tom!" She smiled with pleasure, however. "I've got a picture o' myself climbin' up ladders an' buyin' drinks for the men."
"If you was the walkin' delegate," said Pete, "we'd always work on the first floor, an' never drink nothin' but tea."
"You shut up, Pete!" Mrs. Barry looked at Tom. "I suppose you're wife'll help in this, too?"
Tom looked steadily at the scroll in Mrs. Barry's red rug. "I'm afraid not," he said at length. "She – she couldn't stand climbing the stairs."
It was after eleven o'clock when Tom left the Barrys' and started through the quiet cross street toward a car line. A man stepped from an adjoining doorway, and fell in a score of paces behind him. Tom heard rapid steps drawing nearer and nearer, but it was not till the man had gained to within a pace that it occurred to him perhaps he was being followed. Then it was too late. His arm was seized in a grip of steel.
The street was dark and empty. Thoughts of Foley's entertainment committee flashed through his head. He whirled about and struck out fiercely with his free arm. His wrist was caught and held by a grip like the first. He was as helpless as if handcuffed.
"I vant a yob," a savage voice demanded.
Tom recognized the tall, angular figure. "Hello, Petersen! What d'you want?"
"I vant a yob."
"A job. How can I give you a job?"
"You take to-day ma yob avay. You give me a yob!"
In a flash Tom understood. The Swede held him accountable for the incident of the morning, and was determined to force another job from him. Was the man crazy? At any rate 'twould be wiser to parley than to bring on a conflict with one possessed of such strength as those hands betokened. So he made no attempt to break loose.
"I can't give you a job, I say."
"You take it avay!" the Swede said, with fierce persistence. "You make me leave!"
"It's your own fault. If you want to work, why don't you get into the union?"
Tom felt a convulsive shiver run through the man's big frame. "De union? Ah, de union! Ev'ryvare I ask for yob. Ev'ryvare! 'You b'long to union?' de boss say. 'No,' I say. De boss give me no yob. De union let me not vork! De union – !" His hands gripped tighter in his impotent bitterness.
"Of course the union won't let you work."
"Vy? I am strong! – yes. I know de vork."
Tom felt that no explanation of unionism, however lucid, would quiet this simple-minded excitement. So he said nothing.
"Vy should I not vork? Dare be yobs. I know how to vork. But no! De union! I mak dis mont' two days. I mak seven dollar. Seven dollar!" He fairly shook Tom, and a half sob broke from his lips. "How de union tank I live? My family? – me? Seven dollar?"
Tom recognized with a thrill that which he was hearing. It was the man's soul crying out in resentment and despair.
"But you can't blame the union," he said weakly, feeling that his answer did not answer.
"You tank not?" Petersen cried fiercely. "You tank not?" He was silent a brief space, and his breath surged in and out as though he had just paused from running. Suddenly he freed Tom's wrists and set his right hand into Tom's left arm. "Come! I show you vot de union done."