From the first of May there of course had been several hot-heads who favored violent handling of the scabs. Tom opposed these with the remnant of his influence, for he knew the sympathy of the public has its part in the settlement of strikes, and public sympathy goes not to the side guilty of outrage. The most rabid of all these advocates of violence was Johnson, who, after being summoned to Mr. Baxter's office, began diligently to preach this substance: "If we put a dozen or two o' them snakes out o' business, an' fix a job or two, the bosses'll come right to time." "It strikes me, Johnson, that you change your ideas about as often as you ought to change your shirt," Pete remarked one day, after listening to Johnson's inflammatory words. "Not long ago you were all against a strike." For a moment Johnson was disconcerted. Then he said: "But since there is a strike I'm for measures that'll settle it quick. What you got against smashin' a few scabs?" "Oh, it's always right to smash a scab," Pete agreed. "But you ought to know that just now there's nothin' the bosses'd rather have us do. They'd pay good money to get us to give the hospitals a chance to practice up on a few snakes." Johnson looked at Pete searchingly, fearing that Pete suspected. But Pete guessed nothing, and Johnson went about his duty. There were a number of encounters between the strikers and the strike-breakers, and several of these set-tos had an oral repetition in the police courts; but nothing occurred so serious as to estrange public sympathy till the explosion in the Avon, a small apartment house Mr. Baxter was erecting as a private investment. And with this neither Johnson nor the rank and file, on whose excitable feelings he tried to play, had anything to do. Foley's patience mastered his desire for vengeance easily enough during April, but when May had reached its middle without offering the chance he wanted, his patience weakened and desire demanded its rights. At an utterly futile meeting between the committees of the union and the employers, toward the end of the month, arranged for by the Civic Federation, the desire for vengeance suddenly became the master. This was the first meeting since the strike began, and was the first time Foley had seen Mr. Baxter since then. The contractor did not once look at Foley, and did not once address speech to him; he sat with his back to the walking delegate, and put all his remarks to Brown, the least important member of the strikers' committee. Foley gave as good as he received, for he selected Isaacs, who was nothing more than a fifth man, and addressed him as head of the employers' committee; and rather better, for he made Mr. Baxter the object of a condescending affability that must have been as grateful as salt to raw and living flesh.