At ten o'clock, the hour agreed upon, Tom was in Ruth's office. Ruth and a business-looking woman of middle age, who was introduced as a Mrs. Somebody, were already there when he came. Five boxes of envelopes were stacked on a table, which had been drawn to the center of the room, the letters were on a smaller table against one wall, and sheets of stamps were on the top of Ruth's desk. Tom was appalled when he saw what a quantity twenty-five hundred envelopes were. "What! We can't write names on all those to-day!" "It'll take the two of us about seven hours with you reading the names to us," Ruth reassured him. "I had the letters come folded from the printers. We'll put them in the envelopes and put on the stamps to-morrow. They'll all be ready for the mail Monday night." Until five o'clock, with half an hour off for lunch, the two women wrote rapidly, Tom, on the opposite side of the table, reading the names to them alternately and omitting the names of the adherents of Foley. Now that she was with him again Ruth soon forgot all about Tom's crudity. His purposeful power, which projected itself through even so commonplace an occupation as reading off addresses, rapidly remade its first impression. It dwarfed his crudity to insignificance. When he left her at her door she gave him her hand with frank cordiality. "You'll come Thursday evening then to tell me all about it as you promised. When I see you then I'm sure it will be to congratulate you." Chapter XI IN FOLEY'S "OFFICE" Buck Foley's greatest weakness was the consciousness of his strength. Two years before he would have been a much more formidable opponent, for then he was alert for every possible danger and would have put forth his full of strength and wits to overwhelm an aspiring usurper. Now he was like the ring champion of several years' standing who has become too self-confident to train. Foley felt such security that he made light of the first reports of Tom's campaigning brought him by his intimates. "He can't touch me," he said confidently. "After he rubs sole leather on asphalt a few more weeks, he'll be so tame he'll eat out o' my hand." It was not till the meeting at which Tom's ticket was presented that Foley awoke to the possibility of danger. He saw that Tom was tremendously in earnest, that he was working hard, that he was gaining strength among the men. If Tom were to succeed in getting out the goody-goody element, or even a quarter of it----Foley saw the menacing possibility. Connelly hurried up to him at the close of the meeting. "Say, Buck, this here looks serious!" he whispered. "A lot o' the fellows are gettin' scared." "What's serious?" "Keating's game." "I'd forgotten that. I keep forgettin' little things. Well, s'pose youse get the bunch to drop in at Mulligan's."