He sank slowly back into his chair. "You did your best, Buck!" a voice shouted, and a roar of cheers went up. To those near him he seemed to brighten somewhat at this encouragement. "Three cheers for Keating!" cried the man who had raised this shout in the bar-room, springing to his feet. And again he led off with three groans, which the crowd swelled to a volume matching the cheers for Foley. Connelly, in deference to his office, pounded with his gavel and called for silence--but weakly. Tom flushed and his jaw tightened, but he kept his seat. The crowd began once more to demand Foley's views on the question before the house. He shook his head at Connelly, as he had repeatedly done before. But the meeting would not accept his negative. They added the clapping of hands and the stamping of feet to their cries. Foley came up a second time, with most obvious reluctance. "I feel sorter like the man that was run over by a train an' had his tongue cut out," he began, making what the union saw was a hard effort to smile. "I don't feel like sayin' much. "It seems to me that everything worth sayin' has been said already," he went on in his previous humble, almost apologetic, tone. "What I've got to say I'll say in the shadow of a minute. I size up the whole thing like this: We went into this strike thinkin' we'd win, an' because we needed more money. An' boys, we ought to have it! But we made a mistake somewhere. I guess youse've found out that in a fight it ain't always the man that's right that wins. It's the strongest man. The same in a strike. We're right, and we've fought our best, but the other fellows are settin' on our chests. I guess our mistake was, we wasn't as strong when we went into the fight as we thought we was. "Now the question, as I see it, is: Do we want to keep the other fellow on our chests, we all fagged out, with him mebbe punchin' our faces whenever he feels like it?--keep us there till we're done up forever? Or do we want to give in an' say we've had enough? He'll let us up, we'll take a rest, we'll get back our wind an' strength, an' when we're good an' ready, why, another fight, an' better luck! I know which is my style, an' from what youse boys've said here to-night, I can make a pretty good guess as to what's your style." He paused for a moment, and when he began again his voice was lower and there was a deep sadness in it that he could not hide. "Boys, this is the hardest hour o' my life. I ain't very used to losin' fights. I think youse can count in a couple o' days all the fights I lost for youse. [A cry, "Never a one, Buck!"] An' it comes mighty hard for me to begin to lose now. If I was to do what I want to do, I'd say, 'Let's never give in.' But I know what's best for the union, boys ... an' so I lose my first strike."