Her ireful words he had borne with outward calm; he had learned they were borne more easily, if borne calmly. But her sneering disbelief in him was too much. He sprang up, his wrath tugging at its leash. She, too, came to her feet, and stood facing him, hands clenched, breast heaving, sneering, sobbing. Her words tumbled out. "Oh, you! you! Brighter days, you say. Ha! ha! You beat Buck Foley? Yes, I know how! Buck Foley'll not let you get a job in your trade. You'll have to take up some other work--if you can get it! Begin all over! We'll grow poorer and poorer. We'll have to eat anything. I'll have to wear rags. Just when we were getting comfortable. And all because you wouldn't pay any attention to what I said. Because you were such a fo-o-ol! Oh, my God! My God!" As she went on her voice rose to a scream, broken by gasps and sobs. At the end she passionately jerked Tom's coat and hat from the couch and threw herself upon it--and the frenzied words tumbled on, and on. Tom looked down upon her a moment, quivering with wrath and a nameless sickness. Then he picked up hat and coat, and glancing at Ferdinand, who had shrunk terrified into a corner, walked quickly out of the flat. He strode about the streets awhile, had dinner in a restaurant, and then, as Wednesday was the union's meeting night, he went to Potomac Hall. It fell out that he met Pete and Barry entering as he came up. "I guess you'll have another foreman to-morrow, boys," he announced; and he briefly told them of his discharge. "It'll be us next, Rivet Head," said Pete. Barry nodded, his face pale. All the men in the hall learned that evening what had happened to Tom, some from his friends, more from Foley's friends. And the manner of the latter's telling was a warning to every listener. "D'you hear Keating has been fired?" "Fired? No. What for?" A wise wink: "Well, he's been talkin' about Foley, you know." Tom grew hot under, but ignored, the open jeering of the Foleyites. The sympathy of his friends he answered with a quiet, but ominous, "Just you wait!" There were few present of the men he had counted on seeing, and soon after the meeting ended, which was unusually early, he started home. It was after ten when he came in. Maggie sat working at the tidy; she did not look up or speak; her passion had settled into resentful obstinacy, and that, he knew from experience, only time could overcome. He had not the least desire to assist time in its work of subjection, and passed straight into their bedroom.