He paused to puff at his cigar. "Our honorable president, it seems he's still a kid. Me an' him played a little game o' marbles last week. He lost. An' now he's been givin' youse the earache. It's the same old holler. He says I didn't play fair. He says I tried to stuff the box at the start. But that was just a game on his part, as I said then, to throw suspicion on me; an' anyhow, no ballots got in. He says I stuffed it by a trick at the last. What's his proof? He says so. Convincin'--hey? Gents, if youse want to stop his bawlin', give him back his marbles. Turn me down, an' youse'll have about what's comin' to youse--a cry baby sport." He kicked his chair back against the wall and sat down; and amidst all the talk that followed he did not once rise or turn his face direct to the crowd. But when, finally, Brown said, "Everybody in favor of the motion stand up," Foley rose to his full height with his back against the wall, and his withheld gaze now struck upon the crowd with startling effect. It was a phenomenon of his close-set eyes that each man in a crowd thought them fixed upon himself. Upon every face that gaze seemed bent--lean, sarcastic, menacing. "Everybody that likes a cry baby sport, stand up!" he shouted. Men sprang up all over the hall, and stood so till the count was made. "Those opposed," Brown called out. A number equally great rose noisily. A glance showed Tom the motion was lost, since a two-thirds' vote was necessary to rescind an action. But as his hope had been small, his disappointment was now not great. Foley's supporters broke into cheers when they saw their leader was safe, but Foley himself walked with up-tilted cigar back to his first seat in an indifferent silence. Chapter XVII THE ENTERTAINMENT COMMITTEE During the three weeks that followed Tom kept busy day and night,--by day looking for work and talking to chance-met members, by night stirring the members to appear on the first Wednesday of April to vote for the demand for higher wages. He was much of the time dogged by part of the entertainment committee, but he had become watchful, and the knowledge that he was armed made them wary, so day after day passed without another conflict. At first his committee's delay in the discharge of their duty stirred Foley's wrath. "Youse're as slow as fat angels!" he informed them in disgust. Later the delay stirred his anxiety, and he raised his offer from twenty-five dollars a man to one hundred.