Tom was pushed by policemen up before the judge.
"Now what have you to say for yourself?" the judge demanded.
"It's one string of infernal lies!" Tom exploded. And he launched into a hot denial, strong in phrasing but weak in comparison with the inter-corroborative stones of the three, which had the further verisimilitude gained by tallying in every detail with the officers' account of the explosion.
"What you say is merely denial, the denial we hear from every criminal," his Honor began when Tom had finished. "I do not say I believe every word of the testimony of the three prisoners. But it is more credible than your statements.
"What has been brought out here to-day—the supreme officer of a union compelling members to commit an act of violence by threat of economic disablement and of physical injury, perhaps death—is in perfect accord with the many diabolical practices that have recently been revealed as existing among trade unions. It is such things as this that force all right-minded men to regard trade unionism as the most menacing danger which our nation now confronts." And for five minutes he continued in his arraignment of trade unions.
"In the present circumstances," he ended, "it is my duty to order the arrest of this man who appears to be the chief conspirator—this president of a union who has had the supreme hardihood to appear as a witness against his own tools, doubtless hoping thereby to gain the end of the thief who cried 'stop thief.' I hold him in fifteen thousand dollars bond to await the action of the grand jury. The three prisoners are held in five thousand dollars bail each."
Jake, Bill, and Arkansas were led away by their captors, and Tom, utterly dazed by this new disaster that had overtaken him when he had thought there was nothing more that could befall, was shoved over to the warrant clerk. And again he caught Foley's eyes; they were full of malicious satisfaction.
As he waited before the warrant clerk's desk he saw Mr. Baxter, on his way to the door, brush by Foley, and in the moment of passing he saw Foley's lips move. He did not hear Foley's words. They were two, and were: "First round!"
A few minutes later Tom was led down a stairway, through a corridor and locked in a cell.