Part 11 (2/2)

”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 G.o.d! My G.o.d!”

As she went on her voice rose to a scream, broken by gasps and sobs. At the end she pa.s.sionately 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 pa.s.sion had settled into resentful obstinacy, and that, he knew from experience, only time could overcome.

He had not the least desire to a.s.sist time in its work of subjection, and pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances.

”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.

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