made up my mind, therefore, to offer my services to the men whom you have locked out of employment. Anything that I can do to create a better understanding of their cause and a more active sympathy with the principles for which they stand, I shall do. It may be unreasonable for me to hope that a decision so impartial as this at which I have arrived may not impair our friendship: nevertheless I entertain that hope."
To this letter, dated the twenty-third of September, Floyd sent an immediate reply:
"Dear Stewart: Your judgment upon my affairs seems to me as prompt as it is impartial. Should you require any knowledge of facts in the campaign upon which you are entering, I shall be glad to assist you to it; and in doing this I trust that I may show an impartiality equal to your own."
Stewart puzzled over this note a good deal. He had never known Floyd to indulge in sarcasm, but he felt uneasily that Floyd was sarcastic now, and in that case he wished of course to hit back. The fact that Floyd ignored the studiously offered olive branch indicated a soreness of spirit with which sarcasm might be allied.
By the time that Floyd's note reached him, however, Stewart had had a conference with Tustin; and he decided that personal vengeance for the slur might as well await the first public opportunity—especially as this was not to be delayed. Tustin had furnished him with facts and arguments and desired him to lose no time in writing letters to the newspapers. The gratitude with which the union leader had welcomed so distinguished an accession to the cause pleased Stewart, and he made ready to throw all his energy into the ennobling, self-sacrificing work.
The holiday which he had granted to his draughtsmen he did not himself devote to pleasure. From his interview with Tustin he returned late in the afternoon to his office, and there he began the composition of the first document in the campaign. It was to be a letter to the Eagle, the
