Joe Lathrop, foreman of the finishing room, had a bad headache. It had been along toward the cool, clear dawn of that very morning when, having tearfully assured Mrs. Lathrop for the twentieth time that he had taken but "one li'l' drink," he sobbed himself to sleep. His ears still range disconcertingly with the stinging echoes of his wife's all-too-frank and truthful portrayal of his character, disposition, parentage, and future prospects. His heart was still swollen and painful with the many things he would like to have said in reply had he not been deterred by valor's better part. It was a relief to him, therefore, to take advantage of his monarchical prerogatives in the finishing department and give vent to his hot and acrid feelings. With all his flaying irony and blundering invective, however, Joe Lathrop never for a moment lost sight of the fact that there were some men upon the finishing floor whom it was far better for him to let alone. With all his truculence, he was too good a politician to lay his tongue to the man tagged with an invisible, but none the less protective, tag of a man higher up. And so Joe Lathrop let loose his vials of wrath upon those whose continuance upon the payroll depended upon merit alone. One of these was Robinson. HATED FOR HIS EFFICIENCY Robinson had been finishing piano frames upon this floor for twenty months. He was a young married man, in good health, ambitious, faithful, loyal, skilful, and efficient. He was a man who worked far more with his brains than with his hands. He understood the principles of piano construction, and was, therefore, no rule-of-thumb man. He had studied his work and, as a result, had continually increased both its quantity and quality Robinson was not self-assertive, perhaps a little taciturn, but there was something about him which made people respect him. Over the dinner pails at noon there had been many a conjecture on the part of Robinson's fellow-workers that he was in line for promotion and that he might be made assistant foreman at any time. Joe Lathrop knew that Robinson's quiet efficiency and attention to business had not escaped the superintendent's eye. He felt that the day might come almost any time when, on account of his "just one li'l' drink," or its consequences, he might have to yield his scepter to the younger man. DISCHARGED WITHOUT CAUSE Along about nine o'clock of this particular morning, Lathrop was brow-beating one of the men for some fancied fault near the place where Robinson was working. Seeing Robinson quietly doing his work, paying no attention to the wrangle so near him, only further irritated the suffering foreman. "Robinson," he yelled. "You have been here long enough to know better than this. What do you mean by standing there like a wooden post right beside this man and letting him make such a botch of these frames?"