One morning Tarsis, at the door with book and pencil ready, waited in vain for the workers to arrive; and his career as a great factor in Italy’s industrial life may be dated from the week that followed, when he assembled gangs of strike-breakers to replace the men and women who had joined in a revolt against many wrongs. A strike-breaker he had been ever since. By laying low the will of others, men or masters of men, and setting up his own will, he had gained over human destinies a dominion so practical that he cared little for the theory of king and Parliament. Of small import was it who made the laws or who executed them so long as they did not take from him the power to decide what share a worker should have of the product of his hand. For a year or two Tarsis worked at his trade of strike-breaking in the United States, and that was the making of him, so far as external things had to do with the man. He brought back to Sicily some money-winning ideas about manufacturing that lifted him into the place of superintendent of the silk-mill, and some notions about “high finance” that he picked up bore rich fruit. One day the company found itself reorganized, with Tarsis in command. That was his first big victory. He followed it up in due time by laying siege to the large silk makers of the North. His campaign took the form of a proposal to unite their works with those of the South. At first they greeted his project with smiles, but Tarsis played one company against the other so craftily that in the end, obeying the law of self-preservation, all were eager to join the union. As master mind of the general company Tarsis smashed the idols of custom, tore down everything that retarded the making of money. The methods of generations went by the board. He struck out for new fields, and quickly Italy’s product of spun silk was feeding the looms of Russia, Austria, Great Britain, and the United States in quantities double those of the old days. Mills were set up at places easily reached by the farmer with his cocoons or near to shipping points. At Venice he turned an ancient palace into a buzzing hive and sent forth smoke and steam over the Grand Canal. There were unions of shoe factories, glass and carriage works, steamboat lines, and steel-mills; and never was Antonio Tarsis a factor unless a factor that controlled. The journals of the New Democracy muttered, and likened him to creatures of the brute world noted for their ability to reach or swallow.