Morrissy nodded.
"Well?"
"Well, the boys will go out Monday morning. A committee will wait on Bennington in the morning. He won't back down and discharge the English inventor, so it's a sure thing they'll walk out, every mother's son of them."
"On the morning they go out, I'll send you my check for five hundred."
"For the union?"
"I'll send it to you, and you can use it as you see fit. On Monday morning, then."
"Sure thing."
They smoked for a while. Suddenly McQuade laid a bulky envelope on the table, got up and went out. Morrissy weighed the envelope carefully, thrust it into his pocket, and also departed.
"Five hundred now, and five hundred on Monday. I can see him sending a check. It will be bills. Bah! I should have called out the boys anyhow."
McQuade hurried home. He had another appointment, vastly more important than the one he had just kept. Bolles had returned from New York. It was easy enough to buy a labor union, but it was a different matter to ruin a man of Warrington's note. Bolles had telegraphed that he would be in Herculaneum that night. That meant that he had found something worth while. Each time the car stopped to let passengers on or off, McQuade stirred restlessly. He jumped from the car when it reached his corner, and walked hurriedly down the street to his house, a big pile of red granite and an architectural nightmare. He rushed up the steps impatiently, applied his latch-key and pushed in the door. He slammed it and went directly to his study. Bolles was asleep in a chair. McQuade shook him roughly. Bolles opened his eyes.