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At ten o'clock Maggie, who had been calling on a friend, came in with Ferdinand. The boy made straight for the couch and was instantly asleep. Maggie was struck at once by the unwonted sight of her husband writing, but her sulkiness fought her curiosity for more than a minute, during which she removed her hat and jacket, before the latter could gain a grudged victory. "What are you doing?" she asked shortly.
"Writing a letter," he answered, keeping his eyes on the paper.
She leaned over his shoulder and read a few lines. Her features stiffened. "What're you going to do with that?"
"Print it."
"But you'll have to pay for it."
"Yes."
"How much?"
"About fifty dollars."
She gasped, and her sullen composure fled. "Fifty dollars! For that – that – " Breath failed her.
Tom looked around. Her black eyes were blazing. Her hands were clenched. Her full breast was rising and falling rapidly.
"Tom Keating, this is about the limit!" she broke out. "Hain't your foolishness learnt you anything yet? It's cost you seven dollars a week already. And here you are, throwing fifty dollars away all in one lump! Fifty dollars!" Her breath failed her again. "That's like you! You'll throw money away, and let me go without a decent rag to my back!"
Tom arose. "Maggie," he said, in a voice that was cold and hard, "I don't expect any sympathy from you. I don't expect you to understand what I'm about. I don't think you want to understand. But I do expect you to keep still, if you've got nothing better to say than you've just said!"
Maggie had lost herself. "Is that a threat?" she cried furiously. "Do you mean to threaten me? Why, you brute! D'you think you can make me keep still? You throw away money that's as much mine as yours! – you make me suffer for it! – and yet you expect me never to say a word, do you?"
Tom glared at her. His hands tingled to lay hold of her and shake her. But, as he glared, he thought of the woman he had so recently left, and a sense of shame for his desire crept upon him. And, too, he began vaguely to feel, what it was inevitable he should some time feel, the contrast between his wife … and this other.
His silence added to her frenzy. "You threaten me? What do I care for your threats! You can't do anything worse than you already have done, – and are doing. You're ruining us! Well, what are you standing there for? Why – "
There was but one thing for Tom to do, that which he had often had to do before, – go into the street. He put the scribbled sheets into his coat, and left her standing there in the middle of the floor pouring out her fury.
He walked about till he thought she would be asleep, then returned. A glance into their bedroom showed her in bed, and Ferdinand in his cot at the bed's foot. He sat down again at the table and resumed his clumsy pencil.
It was midnight before the two-hundred-word production was completed and copied. He put it into an envelope, enclosed a note saying he expected to have the list of names over the following Sunday, and took the letter down and dropped it into a mail-box. Then removing shoes, coat, and collar, he lay down on the sofa with his overcoat for covering, and presently fell asleep.
Ruth's heart sank when she received the letter the next afternoon. Her yesterday's talk with him had left her with a profound impression of his power, and that impression had been fresh all the morning. This painfully written letter, with its stiff, hard sentences, headed "Save the Union!" and beginning "Brothers," recalled to her with a shock another element of his personality. It was as though his crudity had dissociated itself from his other qualities and laid itself, bare and unrelieved, before her eyes.
As she read the letter a second time she felt a desire to improve upon his sentences; but she thought this might give him offense; and she thought also, and rightly, that his stilted sentences, rich with such epithets, as "tyrant," "bully," "grafter," would have a stronger effect on his readers than would more polished and controlled language. So she carried the letter to the printer as it had left Tom's hand.
She wrote Tom that Mr. Driscoll was willing her office should be used for the work of Sunday. Tom's answer was on a postal card and written in pencil. She sighed.
The week passed rapidly with Tom, the nights in canvassing, the days in work. Every time he went to work, he did so half expecting it would be his last day on the job. But all went well till Friday morning. Then the expected happened. As he came up to the fire-house a hansom cab, which had turned into the street behind him, stopped and Foley stepped out.
"Hold on there, Keating!" the walking delegate called.
Tom paused, three or four paces from the cab. Foley stepped to his side. "So this's where youse've sneaked off to work!"
Tom kept his square jaw closed.
"I heard youse were at work. I thought I'd look youse up to-day. So I followed youse. Now, are youse goin' to quit this job quiet, or do I have to get youse fired?"
Tom answered with dangerous restraint. "I haven't got anything against the contractor. And I know what you'd do to him to get me off. I'll go."
"Move then, an' quick!"
"There's one thing I want to say to you first," said Tom; and instantly his right fist caught the walking delegate squarely on the chin. Foley staggered back against the wheel of the hansom. Without giving him a second look Tom turned about and walked toward the car line.
When Foley recovered himself Tom was a score of paces away. Half a dozen of the workmen were looking at him in waiting silence. He glared at Tom's broad back, but made no attempt to follow.
"To-day ain't the only day!" he said to the men, closing his eyes to ominous slits; and he stepped back into the cab and drove away.
That evening Tom had an answer to the letter he had written Mr. Baxter, after having failed once more to find that gentleman in. It was of but a single sentence.
After giving thorough consideration to your suggestion, I have decided that it would be neither wise nor in good taste for me to interfere in the affairs of your union.
Tom stared at the letter in amazement. Mr. Baxter had little to risk, and much to gain. He could not understand. But, however obscure Mr. Baxter's motive, the action necessitated by his decision was as clear as a noon sun; a vital change had to be made in the letter to the members of the union. Certain of Mr. Baxter's consent, Tom had set down the guarantee to the men as the last paragraph in the letter and had held the proof awaiting Mr. Baxter's formal authorization of its use. He now cut out the paragraph that might have meant a thousand votes, and mailed the sheet to Ruth.
He talked wherever he could all the next day, and the next evening. After going home he sat up till almost one o'clock expecting Pete to come in with the roster of the members. But Pete did not appear. Early Sunday morning Tom was over at the Barrys'. Pete was not yet up, Mrs. Barry told him. Tom softly opened the door of Pete's narrow room and stepped in. Pete announced himself asleep by a mighty trumpeting. Tom shook his shoulders. He stirred, but did not open his eyes. "Doan wan' no breakfas'," he said, and slipped back into unconsciousness. Tom shook him again, without response. Then he threw the covers back from Pig Iron's feet and poured a little water on them. Pete sat suddenly upright; there was a meteoric shower of language; then he recognized Tom.
"Hello, Tom! What sort of a damned society call d'you call this?"
"If you only worked as hard as you sleep, Pete, you could put up a building alone," said Tom, exasperated. "D'you get the book?"
"Over there." Pete pointed to a package lying on the floor.
Tom picked it up eagerly, sat down on the edge of the bed – Pete's clothes were sprawling over the only chair – and hastily opened it. Within the wrapping paper was the secretary's book.
"How'd you get it, Pete?"
"The amount o' licker I turned into spittoons last night, Tom, was certainly an immoral waste. If I'd put it where it belonged, I'd be drunk for life. Connelly, he'll never come to. Now, s'pose you chase along, Tom, an' let me finish things up with my bed."
"What time d'you want the book again?"
"By nine to-night."
"Will you have any trouble putting it back in the office?"
"Sure not. While I had Connelly's keys I made myself one to his office. I took a blank and a file with me last night."
At ten o'clock, the hour agreed upon, Tom was in Ruth's office. Ruth and a business-looking woman of middle age, who was introduced as a Mrs. Somebody, were already there when he came. Five boxes of envelopes were stacked on a table, which had been drawn to the center of the room, the letters were on a smaller table against one wall, and sheets of stamps were on the top of Ruth's desk.
Tom was appalled when he saw what a quantity twenty-five hundred envelopes were. "What! We can't write names on all those to-day!"
"It'll take the two of us about seven hours with you reading the names to us," Ruth reassured him. "I had the letters come folded from the printers. We'll put them in the envelopes and put on the stamps to-morrow. They'll all be ready for the mail Monday night."
Until five o'clock, with half an hour off for lunch, the two women wrote rapidly, Tom, on the opposite side of the table, reading the names to them alternately and omitting the names of the adherents of Foley.
Now that she was with him again Ruth soon forgot all about Tom's crudity. His purposeful power, which projected itself through even so commonplace an occupation as reading off addresses, rapidly remade its first impression. It dwarfed his crudity to insignificance.
When he left her at her door she gave him her hand with frank cordiality. "You'll come Thursday evening then to tell me all about it as you promised. When I see you then I'm sure it will be to congratulate you."
Chapter XI
IN FOLEY'S "OFFICE"
Buck Foley's greatest weakness was the consciousness of his strength. Two years before he would have been a much more formidable opponent, for then he was alert for every possible danger and would have put forth his full of strength and wits to overwhelm an aspiring usurper. Now he was like the ring champion of several years' standing who has become too self-confident to train.
Foley felt such security that he made light of the first reports of Tom's campaigning brought him by his intimates. "He can't touch me," he said confidently. "After he rubs sole leather on asphalt a few more weeks, he'll be so tame he'll eat out o' my hand."
It was not till the meeting at which Tom's ticket was presented that Foley awoke to the possibility of danger. He saw that Tom was tremendously in earnest, that he was working hard, that he was gaining strength among the men. If Tom were to succeed in getting out the goody-goody element, or even a quarter of it – Foley saw the menacing possibility.
Connelly hurried up to him at the close of the meeting. "Say, Buck, this here looks serious!" he whispered. "A lot o' the fellows are gettin' scared."
"What's serious?"
"Keating's game."
"I'd forgotten that. I keep forgettin' little things. Well, s'pose youse get the bunch to drop in at Mulligan's."
Half an hour later Foley, who knew the value of coming late, sauntered into the back room of Mulligan's saloon, which drinking-place was distant two blocks from Potomac Hall. This back room was commonly known as "Buck's Office," for here he met and issued orders to his lieutenants. It was a square room with a dozen chairs, three tables, several pictures of prize fighters and several nudes of the brewers' school of art. Connelly, Jake Henderson, and six other men sat at the tables, beer glasses before them, talking with deep seriousness.
Foley paused in the doorway. "Hello, youse coffin-faces! None o' this for mine!" He started out.
"Hold on, Buck!" Connelly cried, starting up.
Foley turned back. "Take that crape off your mugs, then!"
"We were talkin' about Keating," Connelly explained. "It strikes us he means business."
It was a principle in Foley's theory of government not to ask help of his lieutenants in important affairs except when it was necessary; it fed his love of power to feel them dependent upon his action. But it was also a principle that they should feel an absolute confidence in him. He now saw dubiety on every face; an hour's work was marked out. He sat down, threw open his overcoat, put one foot on a table and tipped back in his chair. "Yes, I s'pose Keating thinks he does mean business."
With his eyes fixed carelessly on the men he drew from a vest pocket a tight roll of bills, with 100 showing at either end, and struck a match; and moved the roll, held cigar-wise between the first and second fingers of his left hand, and the match toward his mouth. With a cry Connelly sprang forward and seized his wrist.
"Now what the hell – " Foley began, exasperatedly. His eyes fell to his hand, and he grinned. "Well! Now I wonder where that cigar is." He went one by one through the pockets of his vest. "Well, I reckon I'll have to buy another. Jake, ask one o' the salesladies to fetch in some cabbage."
Jake Henderson stepped to the door and called for cigars. Mulligan himself responded, bearing three boxes which he set down before Foley. "Five, ten and fifteen," he said, pointing in turn at the boxes.
Foley picked up the cheapest box and snuffed at its contents. "These the worst youse got?"
"Got some two-fers."
"Um! Make youse think youse was mendin' the asphalt, I s'pose. I guess these's bad enough. Help youselves, boys." But it was the fifteen-cent box he started around.
The men took one each, and the box came back to Foley. "Hain't youse fellows got no vest pockets?" he demanded, and started the box around again.
When the box had completed its second circuit Mulligan took it and the two others and started out. "Hold on, Barney," said Foley. "What's the matter with your beer?"
"My beer?"
"Been beggin' the boys to have some more, but they don't want it."
"My beer's – "
"Hi, Barney! Don't youse see he's shootin' hot air into youse?" cried Jake delightedly. "Chase in the beer!"
"No, youse don't have to drink nothin' youse don't like. Bring in some champagne, Barney. I'm doin' a scientific stunt. I want to see what champagne does to a roughneck."
"How much?" asked Mulligan.
"Oh, about a barrel." He drew from his trousers pocket a mixture of crumpled bills, loose silver, and keys. From this he untangled a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to Mulligan.
"Fetch back what youse don't want. An' don't move like your feet was roots, neither."
Two minutes later Mulligan returned with four quart bottles. Immediately behind him came a girl in the dress of the Salvation Army. "Won't you help us in our work?" she said, holding her tin box out to Foley.
"Take what youse want." He pointed with his cigar to the change Mulligan had just laid upon the table.
With hesitation she picked up a quarter. "This much?" she asked, smiling doubtfully.
"No wonder youse're poor!" He swept all the change into his palm. "Here!" and he thrust it into her astonished hands.
After she had stammered out her thanks and departed, Foley began to fill the glasses from a bottle Mulligan had opened. Jake, moistening his lips, put out his hand in mock refusal.
"Only a drop for me, Buck."
Foley filled Jake's glass to the brim. "Well, there's several. Pick your choice."
He filled the other glasses, then lifted his own with a "Here's how!" They all raised the fragile goblets clumsily and emptied them at a gulp. "Now put about twenty dollars' worth o' grin on your faces," Foley requested.
"But what about Keating?" asked Connelly anxiously, harking back to the first subject. "He's startin' a mighty hot fight. An' really, Buck, he's a strong man."
"Yes, I reckon he is." Foley put one hand to his mouth and yawned mightily behind it. "But he's sorter like a big friend o' mine who went out to cut ice in July. His judgment ain't good."
"Of course, he ain't got no chance."
"The same my friend had o' fillin' his ice-house."
"But it strikes me we ought to be gettin' busy," Connelly persisted.
"See here, Connelly. Just because I ain't got a couple o' niggers humpin' to keep the sweat wiped off me, youse needn't think I'm loafin'," Foley returned calmly.
The others, who had shared Connelly's anxiety, were plainly affected by Foley's large manner.
"Youse can just bet Buck'll be there with the goods when the time comes," Jake declared confidently.
"That's no lie," agreed the others.
"Oh, I ain't doubtin' Buck. Never a once!" said Connelly. "But what's your plans, Buck?"
Foley gazed mysteriously over their heads, and slowly blew out a cloud of smoke. "Youse just keep your two eyes lookin' my way."
Foley knew the value of coming late. He also knew the value of leaving as soon as your point is made. His quick eyes now saw that he had restored the company's confidence; they knew he was prepared for every event.
"I guess I'll pull out," he said, standing up. "Champagne ain't never been the same to me since me an' Morgan went off in his yacht, an' the water give out, an' we had to wash our shirts in it." He looked through the door into the bar-room. "Say, Barney, if these roughnecks want anything more, just put it down to me." He turned back to the men. "So-long, boys," he said, with a wave of his hand, and went out through the bar-room.
"The man that beats Buck Foley's got to beat five aces," declared Jake admiringly.
"Yes," agreed Connelly. "An' he don't keep a strangle holt on his money, neither."
Which two sentiments were variously expressed again and again before the bottoms of the bottles were reached.
If Foley was slow in getting started, he was not slow to act now that he was started. During the following two weeks any contractor that so wished could have worked non-union men on his jobs for all the trouble Foley would have given him. Buck had more important affairs than the union's affairs.
Foley's method of electioneering was even more simple than Tom's. He saw the foreman on every important job in the city. To such as were his friends he said:
"Any o' that Keating nonsense bein' talked on this job?" If there was not: "Well, it's up to youse to see that things stay that way." If there was: "Shut it up. If any o' the men talk too loud, fire 'em. If youse ain't got that authority, find somethin' wrong with their work an' get 'em fired. It's your business to see that not a man on your job votes again' me!"
To such few as he did not count among his friends he said:
"Youse know enough to know I'm goin' to win. Youse know what's the wise thing for youse to do, all right. I like my friends, an' I don't like the men that fight me. I ain't likely to go much out o' my way to help Keating an' his push. I think that's enough, ain't it?"
It was – especially since it was said with a cold look straight into the other's eyes. An hour's speech could not have been more effective.
Foley made it his practice to see as many of the doubtful workmen as possible during their lunch hour. He had neither hope nor desire that they should come out and vote for him. His wish was merely that they should not come out and vote for Tom. To them his speech was mainly obvious threats. And he called upon the rank and file of his followers to help him in this detail of his campaign. "Just tell 'em youse think they won't enjoy the meetin' very much," was his instruction, given with a grim smile; and this opinion, with effective elaboration, his followers faithfully delivered.
When Foley dropped into his office on the Tuesday night before election he found Jake, Connelly and the other members of his cabinet anxiously awaiting him. Connelly thrust a copy of Tom's letter into his hands. "Now wha' d'you think o' that?" he demanded. "Blamed nigh every man in the union got one to-night."
As Foley read the blood crept into his face. "'Bully,' 'blood-suckin' grafter', 'trade union pirate', 'come out and make him walk the plank'," Jake quoted appreciatively, watching Foley's face.
By the time he reached the end Foley had regained his self-control. "Well, that's a purty nice piece o' writin', ain't it, now?" he said, looking at the sheet admiringly. "Didn't know Keating was buttin' into literchure. Encouragin', ain't it, to see authors springin' up in every walk o' life. This here'll get Keating the votes o' all the lit'ry members, sure."
"It'll get him too many!" growled Connelly anxiously.
"A-a-h, go count yourself, Connelly!" Foley looked at the secretary with a pity that was akin to disgust. "Youse give me an unpleasant feelin' in my abdomen!"
He pushed the letter carelessly across to Connelly. "O' course it'll bring the boys out," he said, in his previous pleasant voice. "But the trouble with Keating is, he believes in the restriction o' output. He believes a man oughtn't to cast more'n one vote a day."
But Foley, for all his careless jocularity, was aware of the seriousness of Tom's last move, and till long after midnight the cabinet was in session – to the great profit of Barney Mulligan's cash register.
Chapter XII
THE ELECTION
Tom set out for Potomac Hall Wednesday evening with the emotions of a gambler who had placed his fortune on a single color; his all was risked on the event of that night. However, he had a bracing confidence running through his agitation; he felt that he controlled the arrow of fortune. The man to man canvass; the feminine influence made operative by Mrs. Barry; the letters with which Ruth had helped him, – these, he was certain, had drawn the arrow's head to the spot where rested his stake and the union's.
Tom reached the hall at six-thirty. The polls did not open till seven, but already thirty or forty of Foley's men stood in knots in front of the building.
"Hello, boys! Now don't he think he's It!" said one admiringly.
"Poor Buck! This's the last o' him!" groaned another.
There was a burst of derisive laughter, and each of the party tossed a bit of language in his way; but Tom made no answer and passed them unflinchingly. At the doorway he was stopped by the policeman who was regularly stationed at Potomac Hall on meeting nights.
"Goin' to have a fist sociable to-night?" the policeman asked, anxiously watching the men in the street.
"Can't say, Murphy. Ask Foley. He'll be floor manager, if there is one."
As he went through the hallway toward the stairs, Tom paused to glance through a side door into the big bar-room, which, with a café, occupied the whole of the first floor. A couple of score of Foley men stood at the bar and sat about the tables. It certainly did look as if there might be festivities.
Tom mounted the broad stairway and knocked at the door of the union's hall. Hogan, the sergeant-at-arms, a Foley man, gingerly admitted him. The hall in which he found himself was a big rectangular room, perhaps fifty by one hundred feet. The walls had once been maroon in color, and had a broad moulding of plaster that had been white and gilt; the ceiling had likewise once been maroon, and was decorated with plaster scroll-work and crudely painted clusters of fruits and flowers – scroll-work and paintings lacking their one-time freshness. From the center of the ceiling hung a great ball of paper roses; at the front of the room was a grand piano in a faded green cover. The sign advertising the hall, nailed on the building's front, had as its last clause: "Also available for weddings, receptions, and balls."
Tom's glance swept the room. All was in readiness for the election. The floor was cleared of its folding chairs, they being now stacked at the rear of the room; down the hall's middle ran a row of tables, set end to end, with chairs on either side; Bill Jackson, one of his supporters, was at Hogan's elbow, ready to hand out the ballots as the men were admitted; the five tellers – Barry, Pete, Jake and two other Foley men – were smoking at the front of the room, Jake lolling on the piano, and the other four on the platform where the officers sat at the regular meetings.
Tom joined Pete and Barry, and the three drew to one side to await the opening of the door. "Anything new?" Tom asked.