Mr. Driscoll sank with a gasp into a chair beside the couch. "Well, I suppose you think you're about everybody," he said with a genial glare. "Of course you think I ought to congratulate you. Well, I might as well, since that's one thing I came here for. I do congratulate you, and I mean it." He again grasped Tom's hand. "I've been thinking of the time, about five months ago, when you stood in my office and called me a coward and a few other nice things, and said you were going to put Foley out of business. I didn't think you could do it. But you have! You've done a mighty big thing." He checked himself, but his discretion was not strong enough to force him to complete silence, nor to keep a faint suggestion of mystery out of his manner. "And you deserve a lot more credit than you're getting. You've done a lot more than people think you have--than you yourself think you have. If you knew what I know----!" He nodded his head, with one eye closed. "There's some people I'd back any day to beat the devil. Well, well! And so you're to be walking delegate, hey? That's what I hear." "I understand the boys are talking about electing me." "Well, if you come around trying to graft off me, or calling strikes on my jobs, there'll be trouble--I tell you that." "I'll make you an exception. I'll not graft off you, and I'll let you work scabs and work 'em twenty-four hours a day, if you want to." "I know how!" Mr. Driscoll mopped his face again. "I came around here, Keating, to say about three things to you. I wanted to congratulate you, and that I've done. And I wanted to tell you the latest in the Avon affair. I heard just before I left the office that those thugs of Foley's, hearing that he'd skipped and left 'em in the lurch, had confessed that you didn't have a thing to do with the Avon explosion--that Foley'd put them up to it, and so on. It'll be in the papers this afternoon. Even if your case comes to trial, you'll be discharged in a minute. The other thing----" "Mr. Driscoll----" Tom began gratefully. Mr. Driscoll saw what was coming, and rushed on at full speed. "The other thing is this: I'm speaking serious now, and just as your father might, and it's for your own good, and nothing else. What I've got to say is, get out of the union. You're too good for it. A man's got to do the best he can for himself in this world; it's his duty to make a place for himself. And what are you doing for yourself in the union? Nothing. They've turned you down, and turned you down hard, in the last few months. It's all hip-hip-hurrah for you to-day, but they'll turn you down again just as soon as they get a chance. Mark what I say! Now here's the thing for you to do. You can get out of the union now with glory. Get out, and take the job I offered you five months ago. Or a better one, if you want it." "I can't tell you how much I thank you, Mr. Driscoll," said Tom. "But that's all been settled before. I can't."