The Walking Delegate. Scott Leroy
profitable to him. He went straight to Foley's insinuated meaning.
"You ought to know that's not my size," he returned quietly. "You've tried to buy me off more than once."
The mask went from Foley's face and his mouth and forehead creased into harsh lines. His words came out like whetted steel. "See here. I would pass over the kind o' talkin' youse've been doin'. Somebody's always growlin'. Somebody's got to growl. But what youse said at the meetin' last night, I ain't goin' to stand for that kind o' talk. Youse understand?"
Tom's legs had spread themselves apart, his black-gloved hands had placed themselves upon his hips, and his brown eyes were looking hard defiance from beneath his cap's peak. "I don't suppose you did like it," he said calmly. "If I remember rightly I didn't say it for the purpose of pleasing you."
"Youse're goin' to keep your mouth goin' then?"
"My mouth's my own."
"Mebbe youse knows what happened to a few other gents that started on the road youse're travelin'?" the steely voice went on insinuatingly. "Duncan – Smith – O'Malley?"
"Threats, huh?" Tom's anger began to pass his control. He sneered. "Save 'em for somebody that's afraid of you!"
The cigar that had so far kept its place in Foley's mouth now fell out, and a few lurid words followed it. "D'youse know I can drive youse clean out o' New York? Yes, an' fix youse so youse can't get a job in the iron trade in the country? Except as a scab. Which's just about what you are!"
The defiant glow in Tom's eyes flared into a blaze of anger. He stepped up to Foley, his fists still on his hips, and fairly thrust his square face into the lean one of the walking delegate.
"If you think I'm afraid of you, Buck Foley, or your bunch of toughs, you're almighty mistaken! I'm going to say what I think about you, and say it whenever and wherever I please!"
Foley's face tightened. His hands clenched in his pockets. But he controlled himself. He had the wisdom of a thousand fights, – which is, never to fight unless you have to, or unless there is something to gain. "I've got just one thing to say to youse, an' that's all," he said, and his low, steely voice cut distinctly through the hammer's uproar. "If I hear any more about your talk, – well, Duncan an' O'Malley'll have some new company."
He turned about shortly, and stepped along beams to a ladder, and down that; leaving Tom struggling with a furious desire to follow and close with him. Out of the building, he made for the office of Mr. Driscoll as rapidly as street car could take him. On leaving the elevator in the Broadway building he strode to a door marked "Driscoll & Co. – Private – Enter Next Door," and without hesitation turned the knob. He found himself in a small room, very neat, whose principal furniture was a letter file and a desk bearing a typewriter. Over the desk was a brown print of William Morris. The room had two inner doors, one, as Foley knew, opening into the general offices, and the other into Mr. Driscoll's private room.
A young woman rose from the desk. "What is it?" she asked, with a coldness drawn forth by his disregard of the sign on the door.
"I want to see Mr. Driscoll. Tell him Foley wants to speak to him."
She went through Mr. Driscoll's door, and Foley heard his name announced. There was a hesitant silence, then he heard the words, "Well, let him come in, Miss Arnold."
Miss Arnold immediately reappeared. "Will you step in, please."
As he entered the door Foley put on his hat, which he had removed in the presence of the secretary, pulling it aggressively down over one eye.
"Hello, Driscoll," he greeted the contractor, who had swung about from a belittered desk; and he closed the door behind him.
Mr. Driscoll pointed to a chair, but his face deepened a shade. Foley seated himself, and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his bony hands clasped.
"Well, what can I do for you?" queried Mr. Driscoll shortly.
Foley knew his man. He had met Mr. Driscoll many times at conferences with the Executive Committee of the Iron Employers' Association, and had read him as though he were large print. He noted with satisfaction the color in the contractor's face.
The walking delegate spoke with extreme deliberation. "I come around, Mister Driscoll, to find out what the hell youse mean by workin' scabs on that St. Etienne job. Youse signed an agreement to work only union men, but if I didn't watch youse, youse'd have your work alive with scabs. Now, damn youse, unless youse get them scabs off that job an' do it quicker'n youse ever done anything before, youse'll wish youse had!"
Foley made no mistake in his pre-calculation of the effect of this speech. Mr. Driscoll sprang to his feet, with a trembling that his reddish-gray whiskers exaggerated. His glasses tumbled from his nose, and his feet scrunched them unnoted into the rug. "If there's a scab on the job, I didn't know it. If those men're scabs Duffy must have made a mistake. If – "
"If one o' youse bosses ever breaks a contract, oh, it's always a mistake!"
"If you'd come around here and talked like a gentleman, I'd had 'em off inside of an hour," Mr. Driscoll roared. "But, by thunder, I don't let any walking delegate insult me and tell me what I've got to do!"
"Then youse ain't goin' to fire the scabs?"
"Not till hell freezes over!"
Mr. Driscoll's eyes clicked, and he banged his pudgy fist upon his desk.
"Then the men'll go back to work on the day hell freezes over," returned Foley, rising to go. "But I have an idea youse'll want to see me a day or two before then. I've come to youse this time. The next time we talk, youse'll come to me. There's my card." And he went out with the triumphant feeling of the man who can guide events.
At ten o'clock the next morning he clambered again to the top of the St. Etienne Hotel. The Italian and Swede were still at work.
"Lay down your tools, boys!" he called out to the two gangs. "The job's struck!"
The men crowded around him, demanding information.
"Driscoll won't fire the scabs," he explained.
"Kick 'em off, – settle it that-a-way!" growled one of the men. "We can't afford to lose wages on account o' two scabs."
"That'd only settle this one case. We've got to settle the scab question with Driscoll for good an' all. It's hard luck, boys, I know," he said sympathetically, "but we can't do nothin' but strike. We've got to lick Driscoll into shape."
Leaving the men talking hotly as they changed their clothes for the street, Foley went down the ladder to bear the same message and the same comfort to the riveters.
The next morning the general contractor for the building got Mr. Driscoll on the telephone. "Why aren't you getting that ironwork up?" he demanded.
Mr. Driscoll started into an explanation of his trouble with Foley, but the general contractor cut him short. "I don't care what the trouble is. What I care about is that you're not getting that ironwork up. Get your men right back to work."
"How?" queried Mr. Driscoll sarcastically.
"That's your business!" answered the general contractor, and rang off.
Mr. Driscoll talked it over with the "Co.," a young fellow of thirty or thereabouts, of polished manner and irreproachable tailoring. "See Foley," Mr. Berman advised.
"It's simply a game for graft!"
"That may be," said the junior partner. "But what can you do?"
"I won't pay graft!"
Mr. Berman shrugged his shapely shoulders and withdrew. Mr. Driscoll paced his office floor, tugged at his whiskers, and used some language that at least had the virtue of being terse. With the consequence, that he saw there was nothing for him but to settle as best as he could. In furious mortification he wrote to Foley asking him to call. The answer was a single scrawled sentence: "If you want to see me, I live at – West One Hundred and Fifteenth Street."
The instant after this note was read its fragments were in Mr. Driscoll's waste basket. He'd suffer a sulphurous fate before he'd do it! But the general contractor