So, acting as quickly as he had thought, and now ignoring the man Herzog as though he had never existed, Armstrong faced his fellows.

“It’s all right, boys,” said he, quite slowly, his voice seeming to come from a distance, his tones forced and unnatural.  “It’s all right, every way.  I’m caught with the goods.  Don’t any of you butt in.  Don’t mix with my trouble.  For once I’m glad this is a scab shop, otherwise there might be a strike, here, and worse Hell to pay than there will be otherwise.  I’m done.  I’ll get my time, and quit.  But—­remember one thing, you’ll understand some day what this is all about.

“I’m glad to have worked with you fellows, the past few months.  You’re all right, every one of you.  Good-bye, and remember—­”

“Here, you men, get back to work!” cried Herzog, suddenly.  “No hand-shaking here, and no speech-making.  This man’s a sneak-thief and he’s fired, that’s all there is to it.  Now, get onto your job!  The first man that puts up a complaint about it, can get through, too!”

For a moment they glowered at him, there in the white-lighted glare of the big shop.  A fight, even then, was perilously near, but Armstrong averted it by turning away.

“I’m done.” he repeated.  He gathered up a few tools that belonged to him, personally, gave one look at his comrades, waved a hand at them, and then, followed by Herzog, strode off down the long aisle, toward the door.

“Herzog,” said he, calmly and with cold emphasis, “listen to this.”

“Get out!  Get your time, I tell you, and go!” repeated the bully.  “To Hell with you!  Clear out of here!”

“I’m going,” the young man answered.  “But before I do, remember this; you grazed death, just now.  Well for you, Herzog, almighty well for you, my temper didn’t best me.  For remember, you struck me and called me ’thief’—­and that sort of thing can’t be forgotten, ever, even though we live a thousand years.

“Remember, Herzog—­not now, but sometime.  Remember that one word—­sometime!  That’s all!”

With no further speech, and while Herzog still stood there by the shop door, sneering at him, Armstrong turned and passed out.  A few minutes later he had been paid off, had packed his knapsack with his few belongings, and was outside the big palisade, striding along the hard and glaring road toward the station.

“I did it,” his one overmastering thought was.  “Thank heaven, I did it!  I held my temper and my tongue, didn’t kill that spawn of Hell, and saved the whole situation.  I’m out of a job, true enough, and out of the plant; but after all, I’m free—­and I know what’s in the wind!

“There’s yet hope.  There’ll be a way, a way to do this work!  What a man must do, he can do!”

Up came Armstrong’s chin, as he walked.  His shoulders squared, with strength and purpose, and his stride swung into the easy machine gait that had already carried him so many thousand miles along the hard and bitter highways of the world.