"Well,--how much?" Mr. Driscoll remarked to himself that he knew what part of the "waiting time" the men would get. Foley looked at the ceiling and appeared to calculate. "The waitin' time'll cost youse an even thousand." "What!" "If youse ain't learnt your lesson yet, youse might as well go back." He made as if to resume his paper. Mr. Driscoll swallowed hard. "Oh, I'll pay. What else can I do? You've got me in a corner with a gun to my head." Foley did not deny the similitude. "youse're gettin' off dirt cheap." "When'll the men go back to work?" "The minute youse pay, the strike's off." Mr. Driscoll drew out his check-book, and started to fill in a check with a fountain pen. "Hold on there!" Foley cried. "No checks for me." "What's the matter with a check?" "Youse don't catch me scatterin' my name round on the back o' checks. D'youse think I was born yesterday?" "Where's the danger, since the money's to go to the men for waiting time?" Mr. Driscoll asked sarcastically. "It's cash or nothin'," Foley said shortly. "I've no money with me. I'll bring it some time next week." "Just as youse like. Only every day raises the price." Mr. Driscoll made haste to promise to deliver the money Monday morning as soon as he could get it from his bank. And Foley thereupon promised to have the men ready to go back to work Monday afternoon. So much settled, Mr. Driscoll started to leave. He was suffocating. "Won't youse have a drink?" Foley asked again, at the door. Mr. Driscoll wanted only to get out of Foley's company, where he could explode without having it put in the bill. "No," he said curtly. "Well!--now me, when I got to swallow a pill I like somethin' to wash it down." The door slammed, and Mr. Driscoll puffed down the stairs leaving behind him a trail of language like a locomotive's plume. Chapter III THE RISE OF BUCK FOLEY Tom glared at Foley till the walking delegate had covered half the distance to the ladder, then he turned back to his supervision, trying to hide the fires of his wrath. But his soul flamed within him. All that Foley had just threatened, openly and by insinuation, was within his power of accomplishment. Tom knew that. And every other man in the union was as much at his mercy,--and every man's family. And many had suffered greatly, and all, except Foley's friends, had suffered some. Tom's mind ran over the injustice Foley had wrought, and over Foley's history and the union's history during the last few years ... and there was no sinking of the inward fire.