Over time, Freddie Drummond develops an alter ego, Big Bill Totts, who becomes more and more involved in the working life and labor organizing in the district.
While making his ventures to the south, he meets and starts a relationship with the President of the International Glove Workers’ Union, Mary Condon.
Freddie/Bill realizes that he cannot maintain his dual life and hopes to achieve happiness by Catherine Van Vorst’s side.
In the beginning, the reader is convinced that Freddie has accepted his role in the society, that he is content with his personality even with the existence of his alter ego.
This is when “Big Bill” surpasses Freddie Drummond as he “emitted an unearthly and uncultured yell”[6] and decides to follow his heart and join the labor protest.
The story is clearly slanted to give the reader the feeling that the protagonist has made the right choice, and that the life of a union organizer leading strikes and loving a fellow unionist is much preferable to that of a staid conservative professor with an upper-class wife.