He stopped as though a cold hand had been laid against his heart; then walked on more slowly, considering how he should give the news to her. His first thought was to say nothing of his dismissal for a few days. By then he might have found another job, and the telling that he had lost one would be an easy matter. But his second thought was that she would doubtless learn the news from some of her friends, and would use her tongue all the more freely because of his attempt at concealment; and, furthermore, he would be in the somewhat inglorious position of the man who has been found out. He decided to have done with it at once. When he entered his flat Maggie looked up in surprise from the tidy on which she was working. "What! home already!" Then she noticed his face. "Why, what's the matter?" Tom drew off his overcoat and threw it upon the couch. "I've been fired." She looked at him in astonishment. "Fired!" "Yes." He sat down, determined to get through with the scene as quickly as possible. For the better part of a minute she could not speak. "Fired? What for?" she articulated. "It's Foley's work. He ordered Driscoll to." "You've been talking about Foley some more, then?" "I have." Tom saw what he had feared, a hard, accusing look spread itself over her face. "And you've done that, Tom Keating, after what I, your wife, said to you only last week? I told you what would happen. I told you Foley would make us suffer. I told you not to talk again, and you've gone and done it!" The words came out slowly, sharply, as though it were her desire to thrust them into him one by one. Tom began to harden, as she had hardened. But at least he would give her the chance to understand him. "You know what Foley's like. You know some of the things he's done. Well, I've made up my mind that we oughtn't to stand him any longer. I'm going to do what I can to drive him out of the union." "And you've been talking this?" she cut in. "Oh, of course you have! No wonder he got you fired! Oh, my God! I see it all. And you, you never thought once of your wife or your child!" "I did, and you'll see when I tell you all," Tom said harshly. "But would you have me stand for all the dirty things he does?" "Couldn't you keep out of his way--as I asked you to? Because a wolf's a wolf, that's no reason why you should jump in his mouth." "It is if you can do him up. And I'm going to do Foley up. I'm going to run against him as walking delegate. The situation ain't so bad as you think," he went on, with a weak effort to appease her. "You think things look dark, but they're going to be brighter than they ever were. I'll get another job soon, and after the first of March I'll be walking delegate. I'm going to beat Buck Foley, sure!" For a moment the vision of an even greater elevation than the one from which they were falling made her forget her bitter wrath. Then it flooded back upon her, and she put it all into a laugh. "You beat Buck Foley! Oh, my!"