Herzog’s teeth showed in a rat-like grin of malice.

“Yes, you’ll listen, all right enough,” he sneered.  “I’ve named you, and that goes!  You’re a thief, Armstrong, and this proves it!  Look!”

From behind his back, where he had been holding it, he produced the little morocco-covered book.  Right in Armstrong’s face he shook it, with an oath.

“Steal, will you?” he jibed.  “For it’s the same thing—­no difference whether you picked it out of Mr. Flint’s pocket or found it on the floor here, and tried to keep it!  Steal, eh?  Hold it for some possible reward?  You skunk!  Lucky you haven’t brains enough to make out what’s in it!  Thought you’d keep it, did you?  But you weren’t smart enough, Armstrong—­no, not quite smart enough for me!  After looking the whole place over, I thought I’d have a go at a few pockets—­and, you see?  Oh, you’ll have to get up early to beat me at the game you—­you thief!”

With the last word, he raised the book and struck the young man a blistering welt across the face with it.

Armstrong fell back, against the bench, perfectly livid, with the wale of the blow standing out red and distinct across his cheek.  Then he went pale as death, and staggered as though about to faint.

“God—­God in heaven!” he gasped.  “Give me—­strength—­not to kill this animal!”

A startled look came into Herzog’s face.  He recognized, at last, the nature of the rage he had awakened.  In those twitching fists and that white, writhen face he recognized the signs of passion that might, on a second’s notice, leap to murder.  And, shot through with panic, he now retreated, like the coward he was, though with the sneer still on his thin and cruel lips.

“Get your time!” he commanded, with crude brutality.  “Go, get it at once.  You’re lucky to get off so easily.  If Flint knew this, you’d land behind bars.  But we want no scenes here.  Get your money from Sanderson, and clear out.  Your job ended the minute my hand touched that book in your pocket!”

Still Armstrong made no reply.  Still he remained there, dazed and stricken, pallid as milk, a wild and terrible light in his blue eyes.

An ugly murmur rose.  Two or three of his fellow-workmen had come drifting down the shop, toward the scene of altercation.  Another joined them, and another.  Not one of them but hated Herzog with a bitter animosity.  And now perhaps, the time was come to pay a score or two.

But Armstrong, suddenly lifting his head, faced them all, his comrades.  His mind, quick-acting, had realized that, now his possession of the book had been discovered, his chances of discovering anything more, at the works, had utterly vanished.  Even though he should remain, he could do nothing there.  If he were to act, it must be from the outside, now, following the trend of events, dogging each development, striving in hidden, devious ways—­violent ways, perhaps—­to pull down this horrible edifice of enslavement ere it should whelm and crush the world.