Tom felt her sustained resentment, as indeed he could not help; but he did not feel that which was the first cause of the resentment--her lack of sympathetic understanding of him. At twenty-three he had come into a man's wages, and Maggie's was the first pretty face he had seen after that. The novelty of their married life had soon worn off, and with the development of his stronger qualities and of her worst ones, it had gradually come about that the only thoughts they shared were those concerning their common existence in their home. Tom had long since become accustomed to carrying his real ideas to other ears. And so he did not now consciously miss wifely sympathy with his efforts. There was no break the next morning in Maggie's sullen resentment. After an almost wordless breakfast Tom set forth to look for another job. An opening presented itself at the first place he called. "Yes, it happens we do need a foreman," said the contractor. "What experience have you had?" Tom gave an outline of his course in his trade, dwelling on the last two years and a half that he had been a foreman. "Um,--yes. That sounds very good. You say you worked last for Driscoll on the St. Etienne job?" "Yes." "I suppose you don't mind telling why you left? Driscoll hasn't finished that job yet." Tom briefly related the circumstances. "So you're out with Foley." The contractor shook his head. "Sorry. We need a man, and I guess you're a good one. But if Foley did that to Driscoll, he'll do the same to me. I can't afford to be mixed up in any trouble with him." This conversation was a more or less accurate pattern of many that followed on this and succeeding days. Tom called on every contractor of importance doing steel construction work. None of them cared to risk trouble with Foley, and so Tom continued walking the streets. One contractor--the man for whom he had worked before he went on the St. Etienne job--offered Tom what he called some "business advice." "I'm a pretty good friend of yours, Keating, for I've found you all on the level. The trouble with you is, when you see a stone wall you think it was put there to butt your head against. Now, I'm older than you are, and had a lot more experience, and let me tell you it's a lot easier, and a lot quicker, when you see trouble across your path like a stone wall, to go round it than it is to try to butt it out of your way. Stop butting against Foley. Make up with him, or go to some other city. Go round him." In the meantime Tom was busy with his campaign against Foley. He was discharged on the fourteenth of February; the election came on the seventh of March; only three weeks, so haste was necessary. On the days he was tramping about for a job he met many members of the union also looking for work, and to these he talked wherever he found them. And every night he was out talking to the men, in the streets, in saloons, in their own homes.