Mr. Driscoll talked it over with the "Co.," a young fellow of thirty or thereabouts, of polished manner and irreproachable tailoring. "See Foley," Mr. Berman advised. "It's simply a game for graft!" "That may be," said the junior partner. "But what can you do?" "I won't pay graft!" Mr. Berman shrugged his shapely shoulders and withdrew. Mr. Driscoll paced his office floor, tugged at his whiskers, and used some language that at least had the virtue of being terse. With the consequence, that he saw there was nothing for him but to settle as best as he could. In furious mortification he wrote to Foley asking him to call. The answer was a single scrawled sentence: "If you want to see me, I live at--West One Hundred and Fifteenth Street." The instant after this note was read its fragments were in Mr. Driscoll's waste basket. He'd suffer a sulphurous fate before he'd do it! But the general contractor descended upon him in person, and there was a bitter half hour. The result was that late Saturday afternoon Mr. Driscoll locked his pride in his desk, put his checkbook in his pocket, and set forth for the number on West One Hundred and Fifteenth Street. A large woman, of dark voluptuous beauty, with a left hand like a jeweller's tray, answered his knock and led him into the parlor, on whose furnishings more money than taste had been spent. The room was a war of colors, in which the gilt of the picture frames, enclosing oblongs of high-hued sentiment, had the best of the conflict, and in which baby blue, showing in pictures, upholstery and a fancy lamp shade, was an easy second, despite its infantility. Foley sat in a swinging rocker, reading an evening paper, his coat off, his feet in slippers. He did not rise. "Hello! Are they havin' zero weather in hell?" Mr. Driscoll passed the remark. "I guess you know what I'm here for." "If youse give me three guesses, I might be able to hit it. But chair bottom's as cheap as carpet. Set down." Mr. Driscoll sank into an upholstered chair, and a skirmish began between his purple face and the baby blue of the chair's back. "Let's get to business," he said. "Won't youse have a drink first?" queried Foley, with baiting hospitality. Mr. Driscoll's hands clenched the arms of the chair. "Let's get to business." "Well,--fire away." "You know what it is." "I can't say's I do," Foley returned urbanely. The contractor's hands dug again into the upholstery. "About the strike you called on the St. Etienne." "Oh, that!--Well?" Mr. Driscoll gulped down pride and anger and went desperately to the point. "What'll I have to do to settle it?" "Um! Le's see. First of all, youse'll fire the scabs?" "Yes." "Seems to me I give youse the chance to do that before, an' end it right there. But it can't end there now. There's the wages the men's lost. Youse'll have to pay waitin' time." "Extortion, you mean," Mr. Driscoll could not refrain from saying. "Waitin' time," Foley corrected blandly.