At the very hour of Waldron's leave-taking, another man was pondering deeply, studying the problem from quite another angle, and--no less earnestly, than the two magnates--laying careful plans. This man, sturdy, well-built and keen, smoked an old briar as he worked. A flannel shirt, open at the throat, showed a well-sinewed neck and powerful chest. Under the inverted cone of a shaded incandescent in his room, at the electricians' quarters of the Oakwood Heights enclosure, one could see the deep lines of thought and careful study crease his high and prominent brow. From time to time he gazed out through the open window, off toward the whispering lines of surf on the eastern shores of Staten Island--the surf forever talking, forever striving to give its mystic message to the unheeding ear of man. And as he gazed, his blue eyes narrowed with the intensity of his thought. Once, as though some sudden understanding had come to him, he smote the pine table with a corded fist, and swore below his breath. It was past two in the morning when he finally rose, stretched, yawned and made ready for sleep on his hard iron bunk. "Can it be?" he muttered, as he undressed. "Can it be possible, or am I dreaming? No--this is no dream! This is reality; and thank God, I understand." Then, before he extinguished his light, he took from the table the material he had been studying over, and put it beneath his pillow, where he could guard it safe till morning. The thing he thus protected was none other than a small note-book, filled with diagrams, jottings and calculations, and bound in red morocco covers. That night, at Englewood--in the Billionaire's home and in the workman's simple room at Oakwood Heights--history was being made. The outcome, tragic and terrible, who could have foreseen? CHAPTER IX. DISCHARGED. Almost all the following morning, working at his bench in the electro-chemical laboratories of the great Oakwood Heights plant, Gabriel Armstrong pondered deeply on the problems and responsibilities now opening out before him. The finding of that little red-leather note-book, he fully understood, had at one stroke put him in possession of facts more vital to the labor-movement and the world at large than any which had ever developed since the very beginning of Capitalism. A Socialist to the backbone, thoroughly class-conscious and dowered with an incisive intellect, Gabriel thrilled at thought that he, by chance, had been chosen as the instrument through which he felt the final revolution now must work. And though he remained outwardly calm, as he bent above his toil, inwardly he was aflame. His heart throbbed with an excitement he could scarce control. His brain seemed on fire; his soul pulsed with savage joy and magnificent inspiration. For he was only four-and-twenty, and the bitter grind of years and toil had not yet worn his spirit down nor quelled the ardor of his splendid strength and optimism.