Captains of war have it as a common practice to secure information, in such secret ways as they can, about their opponents' plans and movements, and to develop their own plans to match these; and this practice has come into usage among captains of industry. The same afternoon that Jake brought news of Tom's scheme to Foley, a man of furtive glance whom a member of the union would have recognized as Johnson requested the youth in the outer office of Baxter & Co. to carry his name to the head of the firm.

"Wha' d'youse want to see him 'bout?" demanded the uniform.

"A job."

"No good. He don't hire nobody but the foremen."

"It's a foreman's job I'm after," returned Johnson, glancing about.

The debate continued, but in the end Johnson's name went in to Mr. Baxter, and Johnson himself soon followed it. When he came out Mr. Baxter's information was as complete as Buck Foley's.

That evening Johnson's news came into the conversation of Mr. Baxter and his wife. After dinner she drew him into the library – a real library, booked to the ceiling on three sides, an open wood fire on the other – to tell him of a talk she had had that day with chance-met Ruth. With an aunt's privilege she had asked about the state of affairs between her and Mr. Berman.

"There's no telling what she's going to do," Mrs. Baxter went on, with a gentle sigh. "I do hope she'll marry him! People are still talking about her strange behavior in leaving us to go to work. How I did try to persuade her not to do it! I knew it would involve us in a scandal. And the idea of her offering to go to work in your office!"

Mr. Baxter continued to look abstractedly into the grate, as he had looked ever since she had begun her half-reminiscent strain. Now that she was ended, she could but note that his mind was elsewhere.

"James!"

"Yes." He turned to her with a start.

"Why, you have not spoken a word to me. Is there something on your mind?"

He studied the flames for a moment. "I learned this afternoon that the Iron Workers' Union will probably demand a ten per cent. increase in wages."

"What! And that means a strike?"

"It doubtless does, unless we grant their demand."

"But can you afford to?"

"We could without actually running at a loss."

Mrs. Baxter was on the board of patronesses of one or two workingwomen's clubs and was a contributor to several fashionable charities, so considered herself genuinely thoughtful of the interests of wage-earners. "If you won't lose anything, I suppose you might as well increase their salaries. Most of them can use a little more money. They're respectable people who appreciate everything we do for them. And you can make it up by charging higher prices."

Mr. Baxter sat silent for a space looking at his wife, quizzically, admiringly. He was inclined to scoff in his heart at his wife's philanthropic hobbies, but he indulged her in them as he did in all her efforts to attain fashionable standing. He had said, lover fashion, in their courtship days, that she should never have an ungratified wish, and after a score of years he still held warmly to this promise. He still admired her; and little wonder, for sitting with her feet stretched toward the open fire, her blonde head gracefully in one hand, her brown eyes fixed waitingly on him, looking at least eight less than her forty-three years, she was absolutely beautiful.

"Elizabeth," he said at length, "do you know how much we spent last year?"

"No."

"About ninety-three thousand dollars."

"So much as that? But really, it isn't such a big sum. A mere nothing to what some of our friends spend."

"This year, with our Newport house, it'll be a good thirty thousand more; one hundred and twenty-five thousand, anyway. Now I can't make the owners pay the raise, as you seem to think." He smiled slightly at her business naïveté. "The estimates on the work I'll do this year were all made on the present scale, and I can't raise the estimates. If the ten per cent. increase is granted, it'll have to come out of our income. Our income will be cut down for this year to at least seventy-five thousand. If things go bad, to fifty thousand."

Mrs. Baxter rose excitedly to her feet. "Why, that's absurd!"

"We'd have to give up the Newport house," he went on, "put the yacht out of commission and lessen expenses here."

She looked at her husband in consternation. After several years of effort Mrs. Baxter was just getting into the outer edge of the upper crust of New York society. At her husband's words she saw all that she had striven for, and which of late had seemed near of attainment, withdraw into the shadowy recesses of an uncertain future.

"But we can't cut down!" she cried desperately. "We simply can't! We couldn't entertain here in the manner we have planned. And we'd have to go to Atlantic City this summer, or some other such place! – and who goes to Atlantic City? Why, we'd lose everything we've gained! We can never give the raise, James. It's simply out of the question!"

"And we won't," said Mr. Baxter, gently tapping a forefinger upon the beautifully carved arm of his chair.

"Anyhow, suppose we do spend a hundred and twenty-five thousand, why the working people get everything back in wages," she added ingeniously.

Mr. Baxter realized the economic fallacy of this last statement; but he refrained from exposing her sophistry since her conscience found satisfaction in it.

Monday morning, in discharge of his duty as president of the Iron Employers' Association, Mr. Baxter got Murphy, Bobbs, Isaacs, and Driscoll, the other four members of the Executive Committee, on the telephone. At eleven o'clock the five men were sitting around Mr. Baxter's cherry table. Bobbs, Murphy, and Isaacs already had knowledge of Tom's plans; Mr. Baxter was not the only one having unionists on his payroll who performed services other than handling beams and hammering rivets. Mr. Driscoll alone was surprised when Mr. Baxter stated the object of calling the committee thus hastily together.

"Why, I thought we'd been assured the old schedule would be continued!" he said.

"So Mr. Foley gave us to understand," answered Mr. Baxter. "But it's another man, a man named Keating, that's stirring this up."

"Keating!" Mr. Driscoll's lips pouted hugely, and his round eyes snapped. For a man to whom he had taken a genuine liking to be stirring up a fight against his interest was in the nature of a personal affront to him.

"I think I know him," said Mr. Murphy. "He ain't such a much!"

"That shows you don't know him!" said Mr. Driscoll sharply. "Well, if there is a strike, we'll at least have the satisfaction of fighting with an honest man."

"That satisfaction, of course," admitted Mr. Baxter, in his soft, rounded voice. "But what shall be our plan? It is certainly the part of wisdom for us to decide upon our attitude, and our course, in advance."

"Fight 'em!" said Mr. Driscoll.

"What is the opinion of you other gentlemen?"

"They don't deserve an increase, so I'm against it," said Mr. Bobbs. Had he spoken his thought his answer would have been: "It'll half ruin me if we give the increase. Fact is, I've gone in pretty heavy in some real estate lately. If my profits are cut down, I can't meet my payments."

"Same as Driscoll," said Mr. Murphy, a blowzed, hairy man, a Tammany member of the Board of Aldermen. He swore at the union. "Why, they're already gettin' twice what they're worth!"

Mr. Baxter raised his eyebrows the least trifle at Mr. Murphy's profanity. "Mr. Isaacs."

"I don't see how we can pay more. And yet if we're tied up by a strike for two or three months we'll lose more than the increase of wages would come to."

Mr. Baxter answered the doubtful Mr. Isaacs in his smooth, even tones. "You seem to forget, Mr. Isaacs, that if we grant this without a fight, there'll be another demand next spring, and another the year after. We're compelled to make a stand now if we would keep wages within reasonable bounds."

"Yes, I suppose so," agreed Mr. Isaacs.

"Besides, if there is a strike it is not at all likely that it will last any time," Mr. Baxter continued. "We should break the strike easily, with a division in the union, as of course you see there is, – this Mr. Keating on one side, Mr. Foley on the other. I've met Mr. Keating. I dare say he's honest enough, as Mr. Driscoll says. But he is inexperienced, and I am sure we can easily outgeneral him."

"Beat 'em easy, an' needn't spit on our hands to do it neither," said Mr. Murphy. He started to swing one foot upon the cherry table, but catching Mr. Baxter's eye he checked the leg in mid-career.

Straightway the five plunged into an excited discussion of the chance of beating the strike, of plans for fighting it, and of preparation that should be made in anticipation of it.

When they had gone Mr. Baxter sat down to his desk and began writing a note. He had listened to the talk of the four, to him mere chatter, with outward courtesy and inward chafing, not caring to mention to them the plan upon which he had already decided. His first impulse had been to fight the union, and fight it hard. He hated trade unionism for its arrogation of powers that he regarded as the natural right of the employer; it was his right, as the owner of a great business, and as the possessor of a superior intelligence, to run his affairs as he saw fit – to employ men on his own terms, work them such hours and under such conditions as he should decide – terms, hours, and conditions, of course, to be as good as he could afford. But his business training, his wholly natural instinct for gain, and later his large family expenses, had fixed upon him the profitable habit of seeking the line of least resistance. And so, succeeding this first hot impulse, was a desire that the strike be avoided – if that were possible.

His first thought had been of Foley. But the fewer his meetings with the walking delegate of the iron workers, the more pleased was he. Then came the second thought that it was better to deal directly with the threatening cause – and so the letter he now wrote was to Tom Keating.

The letter was delivered Tuesday morning before Tom left home. He read it in wonderment, for to him any letter was an event:

"Will you please call at my office as soon as you can find it convenient. I have something to say that I think will interest you."

Guessing wildly as to what this something might be, Tom presented himself at ten o'clock in the outer office of Baxter & Co. The uniform respectfully told him that Mr. Baxter would not be in before twelve. At twelve Tom was back. Yes, Mr. Baxter was in, said the uniform, and hurried away with Tom's name. Again there was a wait before the boy came back, and again a wait in a sheeny chair before Mr. Baxter looked up.

"Oh, Mr. Keating," he said. "I see you got my letter."

"Yes. This morning."

Mr. Baxter did not lose a second. "What I wanted to see you about is this: I understand that some time ago you were inquiring here for a position. It happens that I have a place just now that I'm desirous of filling with an absolutely trustworthy man. Mr. Driscoll spoke very highly to me of you, so I've sent for you."

This offer came to Tom as a surprise. His uppermost guess as to the reason for his being summoned had been that Mr. Baxter, repenting of his late non-participation, now wished to join in the fight against Foley. Under other circumstances Tom would have accepted the position, said nothing, and held the job as long as he could. But the fact that the offer was coming to him freely and in good faith prompted him to say: "You must know, Mr. Baxter, that if you give me a job Foley'll make trouble for you."

"I have no fear of Mr. Foley's interference," Mr. Baxter answered him quietly.

"You haven't!" Tom leaned forward in sudden admiration. "You're the first boss I've struck yet that's not afraid of Foley! He's got 'em all scared stiff. If you'd come out against him – "

Tom would have said more but Mr. Baxter's cold reserve, not a change of feature, chilled his enthusiasm. He drew up in his chair. "What's the job?"

"Foreman. The salary is forty a week."

Tom's heart beat exultantly – and he had a momentary triumph over Maggie. "I'll take it," he said.

"Can you begin at once?"

"Yes."

"Very well. Then I'll want you to leave to-morrow."

Tom started. "Leave?"

"Yes. Didn't I mention that the job is in Chicago?"

Mr. Baxter watched Tom closely out of his steely gray eyes. He saw the flush die out of Tom's face, saw Tom's clasped hands suddenly tighten – and knew his answer before he spoke.

"I can't do it," he said with an effort. "I can't leave New York."

Mr. Baxter studied Tom's face an instant longer… But it was too honest.

He turned toward his desk with a gentle abruptness. "I am very sorry, Mr. Keating. Good-day."

With Mr. Baxter there was small space between actions. He had already decided upon his course in case this plan should fail. Tom was scarcely out of his office before he was writing a note to Buck Foley.

Foley sauntered in the next morning, hands in overcoat pockets, a cigar in one corner of his mouth. "What's this I hear about a strike?" Mr. Baxter asked, as soon as the walking delegate was seated.

"Don't youse waste none o' the thinks in your brain-box on no strike," returned Foley. He had early discovered Mr. Baxter's dislike of uncouth expressions.

"But there's a great deal of serious talk."

"There's always wind comin' out o' men's mouths."

Mr. Baxter showed not a trace of the irritation he felt.

"Is there going to be a strike?"

"Not if I know myself. And I think I do." He blew out a great cloud of smoke.

"But one of your men – a Mr. Keating – is stirring one up."

"He thinks he is," Foley corrected. "But he's got another think comin'. He's a fellow youse ought to know, Baxter. Nice an' cultivated; God-fearin' an' otherwise harmless."

Mr. Baxter's face tightened. "I know, Mr. Foley, that this situation is much more serious than you pretend," he said sharply.

Foley tilted back in his chair. "If youse seen a lion comin' at youse with a yard or so of open mouth youse'd think things was gettin' a little serious. But if youse knew the lion'd never make its last jump, youse wouldn't go into the occupation o' throwin' fits, now would youse?"

"What do you mean?"

"Nothin'. Only there'll be no last jump for Keating."

"How's that?"

"How? That's my business." He stood up, relit his cigar, striking the match on the sole of his shoe. "Results is what youse's after. The how belongs to me."

At the door he paused, half closed one eye, and slowly blew forth the smoke of his cigar. "Now don't get brain-fag," he said.

Chapter XVI
BLOWS

It was about half past twelve when Tom left Mr. Baxter's office. As he came purposeless into the street it occurred to him that he was but a few blocks from the office of Mr. Driscoll, and in the same instant his chance meeting with Ruth three weeks before as she came out to lunch flashed across his memory. He turned his steps in the direction of Mr. Driscoll's office, and on gaining the block it was in walked slowly back and forth on the opposite side of the street, eagerly watching the revolving door of the great building. At length she appeared. Tom started quickly toward her. Another quarter revolution of the door and a man was discharged at her side. The man was Mr. Berman; and they walked off together, he turning upon her glances whose meaning Tom's quickened instinct divined at once.

The sight of these two together, Mr. Berman's eyes upon her with an unmistakable look, struck him through with jagged pain. He was as a man whose sealed vision an oculist's knife has just released. Amid startled anguish his eyes suddenly opened to things he, in his blindness, had never guessed. He saw what she had come to mean to him. This was so great that, at first, it well-nigh obscured all else. She filled him, – her sympathy, her intelligence, her high womanliness. And she, she that filled him, was … only a great pain.

And then (he had mechanically followed them, and now stood watching the door within which they had disappeared – the door through which he had gone with her three weeks before) he saw, his pain writhing within him the while, the double hopelessness of his love: she was educated, cultured – she could care nothing for a mere workman; and even if she could care, he was bound.

And then (he was now moving slowly through the Broadway crowd, scarcely conscious of it) he saw how poor he was in his loveless married life. Since his first liking for Maggie had run its so brief course, he had lapsed by such slow degrees to his present relations with her that he had been hardly more conscious of his life's lacking than if he had been living with an unsympathetic sister. But now that a real love had discovered itself to him, with the suddenness of lightning that rips open the night, he saw, almost gaspingly, how glorious life with love could be; and, by contrast, he saw how sordid and commonplace his own life was; and he saw this life without love stretching away its flat monotony, year after year.

And there were things he did not see, for he had not been made aware by the unwritten laws prevailing in a more self-conscious social stratum. And one of these things was, he did not see that perhaps in his social ignorance he had done Ruth some great injury.

That night Maggie kept his dinner warm on the back of the kitchen range, to no purpose; and that night Petersen waited vainly on the tenement steps. It was after twelve when Tom came into the flat, his face drawn, his heart chilled. He had seen his course vaguely almost from the first moment of his vision's release; he had seen it clearer and more clear as hour after hour of walking had passed; and he felt himself strong enough to hold to that course.

The next morning at breakfast he was gentler with Maggie than he had been in many a day; so that once, when she had gone into the kitchen to refill her coffee cup, she looked in at him for a moment in a kind of resentful surprise. Not being accustomed to peering inward upon the workings of his soul, Tom himself understood this slight change in his attitude no better than did his wife. He did not realize that the coming of the knowledge of love, and the coming of sorrow, were together beginning to soften and refine his nature.

The work Tom had marked out for himself permitted him little time to brood over his new unhappiness. After breakfast he set out once more upon his twofold purpose: to find a job, if one could be found; to talk strike to as many members of the union as he could see. In seeking work he was limited to such occupations as had not yet been unionized. He walked along the docks, thinking to find something to do as a longshoreman, but the work was heavy and irregular, the hours long, the pay small; and he left the river front without asking for employment. He looked at the men in the tunnel of the underground railway; but he could not bring himself to ask employment among the low-waged Italians he saw there. He did go into three big stores and make blind requests for anything, but at none was there work for him.

As he went about Tom visited the jobs near which he passed, on which members of his union were at work. One of these was a small residence hotel just west of Fifth Avenue, whose walls were up, but which was as yet unfinished on the inside. He climbed to the top in search of members employed on the iron stairways and the elevator shafts, but did not find a man. He reached the bottom of the stairway just in time to see three men enter the doorway. One of the three he recognized as Jake Henderson, and he knew the entertainment committee had him cornered. He grimly changed his revolver from his vest pocket to his left coat pocket, and filling his right coat pocket from a heap of sand beside him, quietly awaited their coming.

The three paused a moment inside the door, evidently to accustom their eyes to the half darkness, for all the windows were boarded up. At length they sighted him, standing before the servants' staircase in the further corner. They came cautiously across the great room, as yet unpartitioned, Jake slightly in the lead. At ten paces away they came to a halt.

"I guess we got youse good an' proper at last," said Jake gloatingly. "It won't do youse no good to yell. We'll give youse all the more if youse do. An' we can give it to youse, anyhow, before the men can get down."

Tom did not answer. He had no mind to cry for help. He stood alertly watching them, his hands in his coat pockets.

Jake laid off his hat and coat – there was leisure, and it enlarged his pleasure to take his time – and moved forward in advance of his two companions.

"Good-by," he said leering. He was on the point of lunging at his victim, when Tom's right hand came out and a fistful of sand went stinging full into his face. He gave a cry, but before he could so much as make a move to brush away the sand Tom's fist caught him on the ear. He dropped limply.

The two men sprang forward, to be met in the face by Tom's revolver.

"If you fellows want button-holes put into you, just move another step!" he said.

They took another step, several of them – but backward steps. Tom kept them covered for a minute, then moved toward the light, walking backward, his eyes never leaving them. On gaining the door he slipped the revolver into his vest pocket and stepped quickly into the blinding street.

When Tom, entering the union hall that evening, passed Jake at his place at the door, the latter scowled fiercely, but the presence of several of Tom's friends, who had been acquainted with the afternoon's encounter, pacified his fists.

"Why, what's the matter with your eyes, Jake?" asked Pig Iron Pete sympathetically.

Jake consigned Pete to the usual place, and whispered in Tom's ear: "Youse just wait! I'll git youse yet!"

That night Tom sat his first time in the president's chair. His situation was painfully grotesque, – instead of being the result of the chances of election, it might well have been an ironic jest of Foley: there was Connelly, two tables away, at his right; Brown, the vice-president, at the table next him; Snyder, the corresponding secretary, at his left; Jake Henderson, sergeant-at-arms, at the door; – every man of them an intimate friend of Foley. And it was not long before Tom felt the farce-tragedy of his position. Shortly after he rapped the meeting to order a man in the rear of the hall became persistently obstreperous. After two censured outbreaks he rose unsteadily amid the discussion upon a motion. "I objec'," he said.

"What's your objection?" Tom asked, repressing his wrath.

The man swore. "Ain't it 'nough I objec'!"

"If the member is out of order again he'll have to leave the hall." Tom guessed this to be a scheme of Foley to annoy him.

"Put me out, you – " And the man offered some remarks upon Tom's character.

Tom pounded the table with his gavel. "Sergeant-at-arms, put that man out!"

Jake, who stood at the door whispering to a man, did not even turn about.

"Sergeant-at-arms!"

Jake went on with his conversation.

"Sergeant-at-arms!" thundered Tom, springing to his feet.

Jake looked slowly around.

"Put that man out!" Tom ordered.

"Can't youse see I'm busy?" said Jake; and turned his broad back.

Several of Tom's friends sprang up, but all in the room waited to see what he would do. For a moment he stood motionless, a statue of controlled fury, and for that moment there was stillness in the hall. Then he tossed the gavel upon the table and strode down the center aisle. He seized the offending member, who was in an end seat, one hand on his collar and one on his wrist. The man struck out, but a fierce turn of his wrist brought from him a submissive cry of pain. Tom pushed him, swearing, toward the door. No one offered interference, and his ejection was easy, for he was small and half drunken.

Tom strode back to his table, brought the gavel down with a blow that broke its handle and looked about with blazing eyes. Again the union waited his action in suspense. His chest heaved; he swallowed mightily. Then he asked steadily: "Are you ready for the question?"

This is but one sample of the many annoyances Tom suffered during the meeting, and of the annoyances he was to suffer for many meetings to come. A man less obstinately strong would have yielded his resignation within an hour – to force which was half the purpose of the harassment; and a man more violent would have broken into a fury of words, which, answering the other half of the purpose, would have been to Foley's crew what the tirade of a beggar is to teasing schoolboys.

When "new business" was reached Tom yielded the chair to Brown, the vice-president, and rose to make the protest on which he had determined. He had no great hope of winning the union to the action he desired; but it had become a part of his nature never to give up and to try every chance.

The union knew what was coming. There were cheers and hisses, but Tom stood waiting minute after minute till both had died away. "Mr. Chairman, I move we set aside last week's election of walking delegate," he began, and went on to make his charges against Foley. Cries of "Good boy, Tom!" "Right there!" came from his friends, and various and variously decorated synonyms for liar came from Foley's crowd; but Tom, raising his voice to a shout, spoke without pause through the cries of friends and foes.

When he ended half the crowd was on foot demanding the right to the floor. Brown dutifully recognized Foley.

Foley did not speak from where he stood in the front row, but sauntered angularly, hands in trousers pockets, to the platform and mounted it. With a couple of kicks he sent a chair from its place against the wall to the platform's edge, leisurely swung his right foot upon the chair's seat, rested his right elbow upon his knee, and with cigar in the left corner of his mouth, and his side to his audience, he began to speak.

"When I was a kid about as big as a rivet I used to play marbles for keeps," he drawled, looking at the side wall. "When I won, I didn't make no kick. When I lost, a deaf man could 'a' heard me a mile. I said the other kid didn't play fair, an' I went cryin' around to make him give 'em up."

He paused to puff at his cigar. "Our honorable president, it seems he's still a kid. Me an' him played a little game o' marbles last week. He lost. An' now he's been givin' youse the earache. It's the same old holler. He says I didn't play fair. He says I tried to stuff the box at the start. But that was just a game on his part, as I said then, to throw suspicion on me; an' anyhow, no ballots got in. He says I stuffed it by a trick at the last. What's his proof? He says so. Convincin' – hey? Gents, if youse want to stop his bawlin', give him back his marbles. Turn me down, an' youse'll have about what's comin' to youse – a cry baby sport."

He kicked his chair back against the wall and sat down; and amidst all the talk that followed he did not once rise or turn his face direct to the crowd. But when, finally, Brown said, "Everybody in favor of the motion stand up," Foley rose to his full height with his back against the wall, and his withheld gaze now struck upon the crowd with startling effect. It was a phenomenon of his close-set eyes that each man in a crowd thought them fixed upon himself. Upon every face that gaze seemed bent – lean, sarcastic, menacing.

"Everybody that likes a cry baby sport, stand up!" he shouted.

Men sprang up all over the hall, and stood so till the count was made.

"Those opposed," Brown called out.

A number equally great rose noisily. A glance showed Tom the motion was lost, since a two-thirds' vote was necessary to rescind an action. But as his hope had been small, his disappointment was now not great.

Foley's supporters broke into cheers when they saw their leader was safe, but Foley himself walked with up-tilted cigar back to his first seat in an indifferent silence.