fried potatoes and coffee was ready in a very short time. The steak avenged its hasty preparation by presenting one badly burnt side. But Tom ate the poor dinner without complaint. He was used to poor dinners; and his only desire was to get away and to Barry's.
Once during the meal he looked at his wife, a question in his mind. Should he tell her? But his eyes fell back to his plate and he said nothing. She must know some time, of course – but he didn't want the scene now.
But she herself approached uncomfortably near the subject. She had glanced at him hesitatingly several times while they were eating; as he was rising from the table she began resolutely: "I met Mrs. Jones this afternoon. She told me what you said about Foley last night at the meeting. Her husband told her."
Tom paused.
"There's no sense doing a thing of that kind," she went on. "Here we are just beginning to have things a little comfortable. You know well enough what Foley can do to you if you get him down on you."
"Well?" Tom said guardedly.
"Well, don't you be that foolish again. We can't afford it."
"I'll see about it." He went into the sitting-room and returned with hat and overcoat on. "I'm going over to Barry's for awhile – on some business," he said, and went out.
Barry and Pete, who boarded with the Barrys, were waiting in the sitting-room when Tom arrived, – and with them sat Mrs. Barry and a boy of about thirteen and a girl apparently a couple of years younger, the two children with idle school books in their laps. Mrs. Barry's sitting-room, also her parlor, would not have satisfied that amiable lady, the president of the Society for Instructing Wage-Earners in House Furnishing. There was a coarse red Smyrna rug in the middle of the floor; a dingy, blue-flowered sofa, with three chairs to match (the sort seen in the windows of cheap furniture stores on bargain days, marked "Nineteen dollars for Set"); a table in one corner, bearing a stack of photographs and a glass vase holding up a bunch of pink paper roses; a half dozen colored prints in gilt-and-white plaster frames. The room, however, quite satisfied Mrs. Barry, and the amiable president of the S. I. W. E. H. F. would needs have given benign approval to the room's utter cleanliness.
Mrs. Barry, a big, red-faced woman, greeted Tom heartily. Then she turned to the boy and girl. "Come on, children. We've got to chase ourselves. The men folks want to talk." She drove the two before her wide body into the kitchen.
Tom plunged into the middle of what he had to say. "We've talked about Foley a lot – all of us. We've said other unions are managed decently, honestly – why shouldn't ours be? We've said we didn't like Foley's bulldozing ways. We didn't like the tough gang he's got into the union. We didn't like the rough-house meetings. We didn't like his grafting. We've said we ought to raise up and kick him out. And then, having said that much, we've gone back to work – me, you and all the rest of us – and he's kept on bullying us, and using the union as a lever to pry off graft. I'm dead sick of this sort of business. For one, I'm tired talking. I'm ready for doing."
"Sure, we're all sick o' Foley. But what d'you think we ought to do?" queried Barry.
"Fire him out," Tom answered shortly.
"It only takes three words to say that," said Pig Iron. "But how?"
"Fire him out!" Tom was leaning forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees, his big, red hands interlocked. There was determination in his square face, in the set of his powerful red neck, in the hunch of his big shoulders. He gazed steadily at the two men for a brief space. "Boys, my mind's made up. I'm going to fight him."
Pete and Barry looked at him in amazement.
"You're goin' to fight Buck Foley!" cried Barry.
"You're jokin'!" said Pig Iron.
"I'm in dead earnest."
"You know what'll happen to you if you lose?" queried Barry.
"Yes. And I know Foley may not even give me a chance to lose," Tom added grimly.
"You've got nerve to burn, Tom," said Pig Iron. "It's not an easy proposition. Myself, I'd as soon put on the gloves an' mix it up with the devil. An' to spit it right out on the carpet, Tom, I think Buck's done the union a lot o' good."
"You're right there, Pete. No one knows that better than I do. As you fellows know, I left town eight years ago and was bridging in the West four years. I was pretty much of a kid when I went away, but I was old enough to see the union didn't have enough energy left to die. When I came back and saw what Foley'd done, I thought he was the greatest thing that ever happened. If he'd quit right then the union'd 'a' papered the hall with his pictures. But you know how he's changed since then. The public knows it, too. Look how the newspapers have been shooting it into him. I'm not fighting Foley as he was four or five years ago, Pete, but Foley as he is now."
"There's no denyin' he's so crooked now he can't lay straight in bed," Pete admitted.
"We've got to get rid of him some time, haven't we?" Tom went on.
"Yes," the two men conceded.
"Or sooner or later he'll smash the union. That's certain. Now there's only one way to get rid of him. That's to go out after him, and go after him hard."
"But it's an awful risk for you, Tom," said Barry.
"Someone's got to take it if we ever get rid of Foley."
"One thing's straight, anyhow," declared Pete. "You're the best man in the union to go against Foley."
"Of course," said Barry.
Tom did not deny it.
There was a moment's silence. Then Pete asked: "What's your plan?"
"Election comes the first meeting in March. I'm going to run against him for walking delegate."
"If you care anything for my opinion," said Pete, "here it is: You've got about as much chance as a snowball in hell."
"You're away off, Pig Iron. You know as well as I do that five-sixths of the men in the union are against Foley. Why do they stand for him? Because they're unorganized, and he's got them bluffed out. If those men got together, Foley'd be the snowball. That's what I'm going to try to do, – get those men in line."
A door opened, and Mrs. Barry looked in. "I left my glasses somewhere in there. Will I bother you men much if I look for 'em?"
"Not me," said Tom. "You can stay and listen if you want to."
Mrs. Barry sat down. "I suppose you don't mind tellin' us how you're goin' to get the men in line," said Pete.
"My platform's going to be an honest administration of the affairs of the union, and every man to be treated like a man. That's simple enough, ain't it? – and strong enough? And a demand for more wages. I'm going to talk these things to every man I meet. If they can kick Foley out, and get honest management and decent treatment, just by all coming out and voting, don't you think they're going to do it? They'll all fall in line."
"That demand for more wages is a good card. Our wage contract with the bosses expires May first, you know. The men all want more money; they need it; they deserve it. If I talk for it Foley'll be certain to oppose it, and that'll weaken him.
"I wanted to talk this over with you fellows to get your opinion. I thought you might suggest something. But even if you don't like the scheme, and even if you don't want to join in
