Those who dared talk were quick to hear from him. Some fared easily – the clever ones who were not bribe-proof. After being given jobs as foremen, and presented with neat little sums, they readily saw the justice of Foley's cause. Some, who were not worth bribing, he intimidated into silence. Those whom he had threatened and who still talked found themselves out of work and unable to get new jobs; they were forced into other trades or out of the city. A few such examples lessened the necessity for such severe action. Men with families to support perceived the value of a discreet tongue.
These methods were successful in quelling open opposition; but they, together with the knowledge that Foley was taking money wherever it was offered, had the effect of rapidly alienating the better element in the union. This forced him into a close alliance with the rougher members, who were greatly in the minority. But this minority, never more than five hundred out of three thousand men, Foley made immensely effective. He instructed them to make the meetings as disorderly as possible. His scheme worked to perfection. The better members came less and less frequently, and soon the meetings were entirely in the hands of the roughs. As time passed Foley grew more and more jealous of his power, and more and more harsh in the methods used to guard it. He attached to himself intimately several of the worst of his followers whom grim facetiousness soon nominated "The Entertainment Committee." If any one attacked him now, the bold one did so knowing that he would probably experience the hospitality of these gentlemen the first dark night he ventured forth alone.
Such were the conditions behind the acts of tyranny that Tom furiously overhauled, as he mechanically directed the work. He had considered these conditions and acts before, but never with such fierceness as now. Hitherto he had been, as it were, merely one citizen, though a more or less prominent one, of an oppressed nation; now he, as an individual, had felt the tyrant's malevolence. He had before talked of the union's getting rid of Foley as a necessary action, and only the previous night he had gone to the length of denouncing Foley in open meeting, an adventurous act that had not been matched in the union for two years. Perhaps, in the course of time, his patriotism alone would have pushed him to take up arms against Foley. But now to his patriotic indignation there was added the selfish wrath of the outraged individual, – and the sum was an impulse there was no restraining.
Tom was not one who, in a hot moment, for the assuagement of his wrath, would bang down his fist and consign himself to a purpose. Here, however, was a case where wrath made the same demand that already had been made by cool, moral judgment – the dethronement of Foley. And Tom felt in himself the power for its accomplishment. He was well furnished with self-confidence, – lacking which any man is an engine without fire. During the last five years – that is, since he was twenty-five, when he began to look upon life seriously – the knowledge had grown upon him that he was abler, and of stronger purpose, than his fellows. He had accepted this knowledge quietly, as a fact. It had not made him presumptuous; rather it had imposed upon him a serious sense of duty.
He considered the risks of a fight against Foley. Personal danger, – plenty of that, yes, – but his hot mind did not care for that. Financial loss, – he drew back from thinking what his wife would say; anyhow, there were his savings, which would keep them for awhile, if worst came to worst.
As the men were leaving the building at the end of the day's work, Tom drew Barry and Pete to one side. "I know you fellows don't like Foley a lot," he began abruptly, "but I don't know how far you're willing to go. For my part, I can't stand for him any longer. Can't we get together to-night and have a talk?"
To this Barry and Pete agreed.
"Where'bouts?" asked Barry.
Tom hesitated; and he was thinking of his wife when he said, "How about your house?"
"Glad to have you," was Barry's answer.
Chapter IV
A COUNCIL OF WAR
Tom lived in the district below West Fourteenth Street, where, to the bewildered explorer venturing for the first time into that region, the jumbled streets seem to have been laid out by an egg-beater.
It was almost six o'clock when, hungry and wrathful, he thrust his latch-key into the door of his four-room flat. The door opened into blackness. He gave an irritated groan and groped about for matches, in the search striking his hip sharply against the corner of the dining table. A match found and the gas lit, he sat down in the sitting-room to await his wife's coming. From the mantel a square, gilded clock, on which stood a knight in full armor, counted off the minutes with irritating deliberation. It struck six; no Maggie. Tom's impatience rapidly mounted, for he had promised to be at Barry's at quarter to eight. He was on the point of going to a restaurant for his dinner, when, at half-past six, he heard the fumble of a latch-key in the lock, and in came his wife, followed by their son, a boy of four, crying from weariness.
She was a rather large, well-formed, and well-featured young woman, and was showily dressed in the extreme styles of the cheap department stores. She was pretty, with the prettiness of cheap jewelry.
Tom rose as she carefully placed her packages on the table. "You really decided to come home, did you?"
"Oh, I know I'm late," she said crossly, breathing heavily. "But it wasn't my fault. I started early enough. But there was such a mob in the store you couldn't get anywhere. If you'd been squeezed and pushed and punched like I was in the stores and in the street cars, well, you wouldn't say a word."
"Of course you had to go!"
"I wasn't going to miss a bargain of that kind. You don't get 'em often."
Tom gazed darkly at the two bulky packages, the cause of his delayed dinner. "Can I have something to eat, – and quick?"
By this time her hat and jacket were off. "Just as soon as I get back my breath," she said, and began to undo the packages.
The little boy came to her side.
"I'm so hungry, ma," he whined. "Gimme a piece."
"Dinner'll be ready in a little while," she answered carelessly.
"But I can't wait!" – and he began to cry.
Maggie turned upon him sharply. "If you don't stop that bawling, Ferdie, you shan't have a bite of dinner."
The boy cried all the louder.
"Oh, you!" she ejaculated; and took a piece of coarse cake from the cupboard and handed it to him. "Now do be still!"
Ferdinand filled his mouth with the cake, and she returned to the packages. "I been wanting something to fill them empty places at the ends of the mantel this long time, and when I saw the advertisement in the papers this morning, I said it was just the thing… Now there!"
Out of one pasteboard box she had taken a dancing Swiss shepherdess, of plaster, pink and green and blue, and out of the other box a dancing Swiss shepherd. One of these peasants she had put on either side of the knight, at the ends of the mantel.
"Now, don't you like that?"
Tom looked doubtfully at the latest adornment of his home. Somehow, he didn't just like it, though he didn't know why. "I guess it'll do," he said at length.
"And they were only thirty-nine cents apiece! Now when I get a new tidy for the mantel, – a nice pink one with flowers. Just you wait!"
"Well, – but let's have dinner first."
"In just a minute." With temper restored by sight of her art treasures, Maggie went into the bedroom and quickly returned in an old dress.
