oy, charged in particular with a petty peculation, and
in general with the indisputable fact of being a bad influence in the
mills. His case had been in many ways identical with that of the men
whose cause he was now, for reasons of his own, espousing.

But Peter Rathbawne, then less shrewd in estimating men than now, had
reckoned without due credit to the vindictiveness and pertinacity of the
man before him. McGrath--brutally handsome in those days, idle,
insolent, and independent--later had developed qualities of which at the
time there was little evidence. He had smiled and shrugged his
shoulders--a habit which had grown upon him--as Rathbawne gave his
verdict, and had instinctively resisted the temptation to threaten
revenge. For that inspiration he had been devoutly grateful ever since.
It had enabled him to work in silence and unseen, like a mole, toward
the goal at which he aimed. He was a poker player, was Michael McGrath,
of the class which pulls victory out of defeat by the aid of its own
personality and a low pair. The calm indifference with which he had
received his dismissal from the employ of Peter Rathbawne seemed to him,
on reflection, to have been the unconscious forerunner of the elaborate
_nonchalance_ with which he now viewed the unexpected filling of a
broken straight. It was certain that the other player had not guessed
the strength of his cards.

He had never forgiven, never forgotten. It had taken a quarter-century
of unremitting effort, of indomitable perseverance, of calculated
ingenuity, to secure to him the position which he now felt to be
assured--that of being able to cope with the man who had been his
adversary, and so overwhelmingly his superior. The fight was on at
last,--a fight in which the odds were not only equal, but, if anything,
in favor of the former mill-hand, thus become one of the most powerful
men in Alleghenia; a fight to be fought to the bitter finish, with an
almost certain triumph as his reward.

Added to these motives was another,--newer, it is true, but none the
less potent,--his hatred for the Lieutenant-Governor. He had been able
to laugh within a half-minute after the words "unmitigated blackguard"
had smitten his ears; but they had rankled for all that. It was not so
much the insult, as the knowledge that it was justified. He was
remarkably candid with himself, was Michael McGrath.

Hence the unparalleled venom of the strike at the Rathbawne Mills.
McGrath's dua