its overwhelming virulence.

"Yes, yes, yes," she clamored, addressing her hapless husband, who stood
appalled before the attack, "you are one big, fat fool! You always were.
You are in love with her--no? You let her bring your wife here, make her
for a joke to her rich friends, let her get insults. They laugh and make
fun of me, Frieda Schmidt, your wife; and then, when they have had the
good laugh, they say: 'What do you think we want of you? You are not
like us. We are grand ladies: you are a working woman. Get out! Get out!
We have had our laugh at you. Now, go! We are through; we are tired of
you. It was very good of Mrs. Hamilton to bring you here for us to laugh
at; but it is over. Get out!'... And then you come and thank her
because she insults your wife, insults your name; and you take less
wages from her husband because she insults your name and me. If you take
that cut, you are not my man--never with me no more!" With the last
words, she darted from the room, and a moment later the street-door
slammed violently behind her.

"Good for Frieda!" Mrs. McMahon applauded. "When she does talk, sure
she says something.... You heard her, Mike McMahon? Well, what she said,
them's my sentiments. You know what she did now." A jerk of the head
indicated the wretched hostess. "She pretended to ask us to join a club.
She brought us here to insult us, to make fun of us. She made us the
laughing-stock of Morton and Carrington's wives. Do you hear that?
Morton and Carrington! Put the names of them in your pipe and smoke it.
Mike McMahon, listen to what I'm telling you. If you take a cut from
them that insult your wife, you can forget to come home for good, my
bucco." In her turn, the Irishwoman stalked out of the room and from the
house with a tread of heavy dignity.

"That goes with me, Pop!" Sadie declared, as she flounced out.

"It's all been a terrible mistake," Cicily ventured to the three men who
stood regarding her with sullen faces and baleful eyes after the
revelations that had just been made.

"I'm thinking you're right," McMahon agreed. There was something
sinister in his voice. "But it's us that made the mistake. We thought
the boss and his wife could be on the level with us. What a bunch of
damn fools we were!" And his two confreres nodded gloomy assent.

It was at this most unpropitious moment that Hamilton came briskly into
the room. He stopped short in the doorway, at sight of the three men of
the committ