"The way youse talk sometimes, Baxter, makes me think youse must 'a' been born about minute before last," Foley returned blandly. "As an amachure diplomat, youse've got Mayor Low skinned to death. Sure I made the motion. An' why did I make the motion? If I hadn't 'a' made it, but had opposed it, where'd I 'a' been? About a thousand miles outside the outskirts o' nowhere,--nobody in the union, an' consequently worth about as much to youse as a hair in a bowl o' soup. I stood to lose both. I still got the union." "What do you propose that we do?" Mr. Baxter held himself in, for the reason that he supposed the old relation would merely give place to a new. "Well, there's goin' to be strike. The union'll make a demand, an' I rather guess youse'll not give up without a fight." "We shall certainly fight," Mr. Baxter assured him. "Well," he drawled, "since I've got to lead the union in a strike an' youse're goin' to fight the strike, it seems like everything'd have to be off between us, don't it?" Mr. Baxter did not reply at once, and then did not answer the question. "What are you going to do?" "To tell youse, that is just what I came here for." In a flash Foley's manner changed from the playful to the vindictive, and he leaned slowly forward in his chair. "I'm goin' to fight youse, Baxter, an' fight youse like hell!" he said, between barely parted teeth. And his gray eyes, suddenly hard, gazed maliciously into Mr. Baxter's face. "I'm goin' to fight like hell!" he went on. "For two years I've been standin' your damned manicured manners. Youse've acted like I wasn't fit to touch. Why d'youse s'pose I've stood it? Because it was money to me. Now that there's no money in it, d'youse s'pose I'm goin' to stand it any longer? Not much, by God! And d'youse think I've forgotten the past--your high-nosed, aristocratic ways? Well, youse'll remember 'em too! My chance's come, an' I'm goin' to fight youse like hell!" At the last Foley's clenched fist was under Mr. Baxter's nose. The contractor did not stir the breadth of a hair. "Mr. Foley," he said in his cold, even voice, "I think you know the shortest way out of this office." "I do," said Foley. "An' it's a damned sight too long!" He gave Mr. Baxter a long look, full of defiant hate, contemptuously flipped his half-smoked cigar on Mr. Baxter's spotless desk, and strode out. Chapter XIX FOLEY TASTES REVENGE Foley's threat that, under cover of the strike, he was going to make Mr. Baxter suffer, was anything save empty bluster. But twenty years of fighting had made him something of a connoisseur of vengeance. He knew, for instance, that a moment usually presented itself when revenge was most effective and when it tasted sweetest. So he now waited for time to bring him that moment; and he waited all the more patiently because a month must elapse ere the beginning of the strike would afford him his chance.