Utterly astounded, he raced through the several accounts of Foley's exposure. They were practically alike. They told of Mr. Baxter's visit to the District Attorney, and then recited the events of the past three weeks just as Mr. Baxter had given them to the official prosecutor: How Foley had tried to hold the Executive Committee up for fifty thousand dollars; how the committee had seen in his demand a chance to get him into the hands of the law, and so rid labor and capital of a common enemy; how, after much deliberation, they had decided to make the attempt; how the sham negotiations had proceeded; how yesterday, to make the evidence perfect, Foley had been given the fifty thousand dollars he had demanded as the price of settlement--altogether a most complete and plausible story. "A perfect case," the District Attorney had called it. Tom's part in the affair was told in a couple of paragraphs under a subhead. One of the papers had managed to get in a hurried editorial on Mr. Baxter's story. "Perhaps their way of trapping Foley smacks strongly of gum-shoe detective methods," the editorial concluded; "but their end, the exposure of a notorious labor brigand, will in the mind of the public entirely justify their means. They have earned the right to be called public benefactors." Such in tone was the whole editorial. It was a prophecy of the editorial praise that was to be heaped upon the contractors in the afternoon papers and those of the next morning. Tom flung the papers from him in sickened, bewildered wrath. He had expected a personal triumph before the public. He felt there was something wrong; he felt Mr. Baxter had robbed him of his glory, just as Foley had robbed him of his strike. But in the first dazedness of his disappointment he could not understand. He hardly touched the breakfast Maggie had quietly put upon the chair while he had been reading, but sank back and, his eyes on the ceiling with its circle of clustered grapes, began to go over the situation. At the end of a few minutes he was interrupted by Ferdinand, whom Maggie had sent in with a letter that had just been delivered by a messenger. Tom took it mechanically, then eagerly tore open the envelope. The letter was from the detective agency, and its greater part was the report of the observations made the previous evening by the detectives detailed to watch Mr. Baxter. Tom read it through repeatedly. It brought Foley's whispered words flashing back upon him: "I give it to youse for what it's worth; Baxter started this trick." He began slowly to understand. But before he had fully mastered the situation there was a loud knock at the hall door. Maggie opened it, and Tom heard a hearty voice sound out: "Good-mornin', Mrs. Keating. How's your husband?" "You'll find him in the front room, Mrs. Barry," Maggie answered. "All of you go right in."