Foley's patience mastered his desire for vengeance easily enough during April, but when May had reached its middle without offering the chance he wanted, his patience weakened and desire demanded its rights. At an utterly futile meeting between the committees of the union and the employers, toward the end of the month, arranged for by the Civic Federation, the desire for vengeance suddenly became the master. This was the first meeting since the strike began, and was the first time Foley had seen Mr. Baxter since then. The contractor did not once look at Foley, and did not once address speech to him; he sat with his back to the walking delegate, and put all his remarks to Brown, the least important member of the strikers' committee. Foley gave as good as he received, for he selected Isaacs, who was nothing more than a fifth man, and addressed him as head of the employers' committee; and rather better, for he made Mr. Baxter the object of a condescending affability that must have been as grateful as salt to raw and living flesh.
But Foley was not appeased. When he and Connelly were clear of the meeting he swore fiercely. "He won't be so cool to-morrow!" he said, and swore again. "An' the same trick'll help bring 'em all to time," he added.
Foley had already had vengeful eyes upon the Avon, which stood on a corner with a vacant lot on one side and an open space between its rear and the next building. Jake had carefully reconnoitered its premises, with the discovery that one of the two Pinkerton guards was an acquaintance belonging to the days when he himself had been in the service of the Pinkerton agency. That night Jake sauntered by the Avon, chatted awhile with the two guards, and suggested a visit to a nearby saloon. As soon as the three were safely around the corner Kaffir Bill and Arkansas Number Two slipped into the doorway of the Avon, leaving Smoky on watch without. Bill and Arkansas had their trouble: to find their way about in the darkness, to light the fuse—and then they had to cut off an unignitable portion of the fuse; and then in their nervous eagerness to get away their legs met a barrel of cement and they went sprawling behind a partition. Several moments passed ere they found the doorway, the while they could hear the sputtering of the shortened fuse, and during which they heard Smoky cry out, "Come on!" When they did come into the street it was to see the two Pinkertons not twenty paces away. Before their haste could take them to the opposite sidewalk the pavement jumped under their feet, and the building at their backs roared heavily. The guards, guessing the whole trick, began shooting at the two. A policeman appeared from around the corner with drawn pistol—and that night Jake, Bill, and Arkansas slept in a cell.
The next morning, after getting on the car that carried him to his work, Tom took up his paper with a leisure that straightway left him, for his eyes were instantly caught by the big headlines sketching the explosion in the Avon. He raced through the three columns. He could see Foley behind the whole outrage, and he thrilled with satisfaction as he foresaw the beginning of Foley's undoing in the police court. There was no work for him that morning. He leaped off the car and took another that brought him near the court where the three men were to have their preliminary hearing.
It was half-past eight when he reached the court. As he entered the almost empty court-room he saw Foley and a black-maned man of lego-theatric appearance standing before a police sergeant, and he heard Foley say: "This is their lawyer; we want to see 'em straight off." Tom preferred to avoid meeting Foley, so he turned quickly back and walked about for half an hour. When he returned the small court-room was crowded, the clerks were in place, the policemen and their prisoners stood in a long queue having its head at the judge's desk and its tail without the iron railing that fenced off the spectators.
Tom had been in the court-room but a few minutes when an officer motioned him within the railing. The court attorney stepped to his side. "You were pointed out to me as the president of the Iron Workers' Union," said the attorney.
"Yes."
"And I was told you didn't care particularly for the prisoners in this explosion case."
"Well?"
"Would you be willing to testify against them—not upon the explosion, which you didn't see, but upon their character?"