The blustering and half intoxicated harness maker stood in the open shop door and told again and in detail the story of his triumph over his employer. Then another thought came and he spoke of the twelve hundred dollars Joe had lost in the stock, of the plant-setting machine company. “He lost his money and you fellows are going to get licked in this fight,” he declared. “You're all wrong, you fellows, when you talk about unions or joining the socialist party. What counts is what a man can do for himself. Character counts. Yes, sir, character makes a man what he is.” Jim pounded on his chest and glared about him. “Look at me,” he said. “I was a drunkard and down and out when I came to this town; a drunkard, that's what I was and that's what I am. I came here to this shop to work, and now, if you want to know, ask any one in town who runs this place. The socialist says money is power. Well, there's a man inside here who has the money, but you bet I've got the power.” Slapping his knees with his hands Jim laughed heartily. A week before, a traveling man had come to the shop to sell machine-made harness. Joe had ordered the man out and Jim had called him back. He had placed an order for eighteen sets of the harness and had made Joe sign the order. The harness had arrived that afternoon and was now hung in the shop. “It's hanging in the shop now,” Jim cried. “Go see for yourself.” Triumphantly Jim walked up and down before the men on the sidewalk, and his voice rang through the shop where Joe sat on his harness-maker's horse under a swinging lamp hard at work. “I tell you, character's the thing that counts,” the roaring voice cried. “You see I'm a workingman like you fellows, but I don't join a union or a socialist party. I get my way. My boss Joe in there's a sentimental old fool, that's what he is. All his life he's made harnesses by hand and he thinks that's the only way. He claims he has pride in his work, that's what he claims.” Jim laughed again. “Do you know what he did the other day when that traveler had gone out of the shop and after I had made him sign that order?” he asked. “Cried, that's what he did. By God, he did,--sat there and cried.” Again Jim laughed, but the workmen on the sidewalk did not join in his merriment. Going to one of them, the one who had declared his intention of joining the union, Jim began to berate him. “You think you can lick Ed Hall with Steve Hunter and Tom Butterworth back of him, eh?” he asked sharply. “Well, I'll tell you what--you can't. All the unions in the world won't help you. You'll get licked--for why? “For why? Because Ed Hall is like me, that's for why. He's got character, that's what he's got.”