"Good night, sor. I'm hoping you won't need anything more from me, sor.
But just blow a whistle if ye are in chance of throuble, and I'll do my
best for ye."
And with this cheerful parting ringing in my ears, I swung back the
doors and stepped into the saloon, with the shadow of a wish that the
Council of Nine had shown better taste in headquarters.
I found myself in a long, low-ceiled room, lighted by a dozen lamps that
struggled to overpower the tobacco smoke that filled it. A dingy,
painted bar stretched half-way down the side of the room, and behind it
a cracked mirror and a gaudy array of bottles served for ornament and
use. Below the bar the room jutted back into an L, where a half-dozen
tables were scattered about. The floor was littered with sawdust,
trampled and soiled with many feet, and mottled with many a splotch of
tobacco juice.
I looked about for Clark and his companions. Five or six loungers leaned
against the bar, listening to a stout, red-faced Irishman, who was
shaking his fist vigorously as an accompaniment to a loud denunciation
of the Chinese. There was something about the man that drew a second
look, though at first glance I thought I had recognized the symptoms of
the saloon politician. He had a bristling brown mustache, a shrewd
mouth, and a strong aggressive jaw. A little above the medium height,
with compact, heavy frame, and broad shoulders that betokened strength,
he was a type of the substantial workman.
Beyond the oratorical Irishman with his denunciations of "the haythen
divils," stood a man with hat drawn down over his eyes, half hiding his
sallow face, and with hands deep in his pockets, who glanced furtively
from side to side, as if in suspicion that an enemy was about.
Something faintly stirred in memory at the sight of him, but he shuffled
out of the saloon as I passed him, and it was not until he was gone that
I connected him with the spy whose overcoat lay in my room. It was too
late to follow him, for, before I had recalled the vagrant memory, a
short fat old man waddled slowly forward and stood before me with the
air of a proprietor. I divined that I was face to face with H. Blasius.
"Vat vill you have, mine friend?" he inquired deliberately.
I looked into his fat pasty face, that gave back an unhealthy almost
livid pallor to the light that shone upon it, and caught the glance of
his shifty bleary eyes under their puffy lids, and a shudder of
repulsion ran through me. He was a man of sixty or more. His face,
clean-shaven except for a mustache and chin-tuft stained with tobacco
juice, revealed to the world every line that a wicked life had left upon
it.
He rubbed his fat, moist hands on the dingy white apron that he wore,
gave a tug at his mustache, and waited for my reply.
"I'm looking for Mr. Clark," I said.
"_Non_--no soch man is here," he said suspiciously. "I have no one of
zat name."
"I'm quite sure he's here," I said. "And I must see him."
The brow of H. Blasius darkened, and he looked about slowly as though he
meditated calling for assistance to hasten my departure.
"I don't vant ze trouble," he had begun, when I caught sight of my man
at a table in the alcove at the other end of the long room.
"There he is now," I interrupted. "There'll be no trouble, if you don't
make it yourself."
I was gone before H. Blasius had brought his wits to understand my
meaning, and in a moment stood beside a group of men who were sitting
around the farther table, beer glasses before them and pipes in hand,
listening to an excited young man with a shock of long, tawny hair, who
pounded the table to strengthen the force of his argument. As he came
to a pause, I put my hand on the shoulder of a tall, awkward,
spare-built man, with a stubby red beard, who was listening with effort,
and evidently burning to reply to the fervid young orator. It was
Clark, and he rose clumsily and shook hands with effusion.
"I'm glad you come, Mr. Hampden; I'd about give you up. Boys, this is
Mr. Hampden, the friend I was telling you about. Won't you take this
chair, sir, and spend the evening with us? We was having a little
discussion about the Revolution."
"The Revolution!" I exclaimed. "Well, that's a safe antiquarian topic."
"Oh," stammered Clark, "it isn't the old Revolution. That's too far back
for us. It's the coming Revolution we're talking about, when all men
are to be equal and share alike in the good things of the earth. Parks,
here, thinks he knows all about it." And he waved his hand toward the
oratorical young man, who looked on the world with eyes that seemed to
burn with the light of fever.
Parks accepted this as an introduction, and acknowledged it with a nod
as I took a seat. I looked at him with keen interest, for I knew his
name as one of the nine leaders who had banded themselves to right the
wrongs of the world--with the incidental assistance of Peter Bolton.
Then I looked about the rest of the group as Clark spoke their names,
and was disappointed to find that a little spectacled German, with a
bristling black beard, was the only other member of the Council at the
table.
"Hope to know you better, Mr. Hampden," said Parks. "You don't look to
be one of us."
"If it's a secret society, I can't say that I've been initiated," I
said. "But I hope you'll count me as one of you for an occasional
evening. What do you happen to be, if I may ask?"
"We," said Parks, leaning forward and gazing fiercely into my eyes, "we
represent the people. We are from the masses."
"I'm afraid, then," I returned with a laugh, "you'll have to count me as
one of you. I can't think of any way in which my name gets above the
level of the lower ten million."
"Sir," cried Parks, shaking his finger in my face and speaking rapidly
and excitedly, "your speech betrays you. You speak of the lower ten
million. They are not the lower--no, by Heaven! Your heart is not with
the people. There is nothing in you that beats responsive to their cry
of distress. You may be as poor as the rest of us, but your feelings,
your prejudices are with the despoilers of labor, the oppressors of the
lowly. You are--"
What further offense of aristocracy he would have charged upon my head I
know not, for Clark reached over and seized his arm.
"Hold on!" he cried. "Mr. Hampden is our guest and a good fellow, so
don't be too hard on him. He ain't educated yet. That's all the matter
with him. Give him time."
Parks' voice had been rising and his utterance had been growing more
rapid and excited, but he lowered his tones once more.
"No offense, Hampden, but my blood boils at the wrongs inflicted on the
downtrodden slaves of the wage system, and I speak my mind."
"Oh, go ahead," I said. "It doesn't worry me. Come to think of it, Mr.
Parks, you don't seem to be one of the slaves of the wage system
yourself. You are, I take it from your words and ways, a man of
education and something more."
"Sir," said Parks, striking the table angrily, "it is my misfortune."
"Misfortune?" I laughed inquiringly, and the others laughed in sympathy.
"Misfortune--yes, sir. I repeat it. I have had schooling and to spare.
And if it wasn't for that, I could raise this city in arms in a month."
My left-hand neighbor was an old man, a little bent with years, who had
been looking about the table with dreamy eye. But at Parks' boastful
words his face lighted and he gave a cackling laugh.
"Heh, heh! He's right," he said, addressing the rest of us. "There's a
crowd of thieves and robbers on top and they need a taking-down. Parks
is just the one to do it."
"You're wrong, Merwin," said Parks, calming down and looking at the old
man reflectively. "I'm not the one to do it."
"And why not?" I asked.
"It's the cursed education you speak of," said Parks fiercely. "I am
with the masses, but not of them. They mistrust me. Try as I will I
can't get their confidence. I can't rouse them. They shout for me,
they applaud me, but I can't stir them as they must be stirred before
the Revolution can begin."
"What sort of man do you want?" I asked.
"He must be a man of the people," said Parks.
"By which you mean a day-laborer, I judge."
Parks ignored the interruption and went on:
"He must have eloquence, courage, and he must understand men; he must be
a statesman by nature--a man of brains. But he must be one of the class
he addresses."
"But how are you going to get a man of brains out of that class?" I
inquired.
Parks struck the table a sounding blow with his fist, shook his head
until his shock of hair stood out in protest, and glared at me fiercely.
"Do you mean to deny," he began hotly, "that brains are born to what you
call the lowest classes? Do you deny the divine spark of intelligence to
the sons of toil? Do you say that genius is sent to the houses of the
rich and not to those of the poor? Do you dare to say that the son of a
banker may have brains and that the son of a hodman may not?"
"By no means, my dear fellow. I only say if he has brains he won't be a
hodman."
"I've known some pretty smart hodmen in my time," said Clark, when he
saw that Parks had no answer ready. "I knew a fellow who made four
hundred dollars on a contract. But," he added regretfully, "he lost it
in stocks."
"I'm afraid that instance doesn't prove anything, Clark," said Merwin
with a thin laugh. "He should have had brains enough to keep out of
stocks."
"There's not many as has that," said a heavy-jowled Englishman who sat
across the table. "I wish I had 'em myself."
"I'm afraid you're right, Mr. Hampden," said Clark. "We can't get a
leader from the hodman class."
Parks leaned forward and spoke quietly and impressively.
"By God, we must!" he said. "_I'll_ be the brains. I'll find the hodman
for the mouth, and I'll teach him to talk in a way to set the world on
fire."
"And then what?" I asked.
Parks gave his head a shake, and closed his lips tightly as though he
feared that some secret would escape them. But the excitable little
German with spectacles and a bushy black beard gave me an answer.
"Leeberty, equality, fraternity!" he exclaimed.
"And justice," added the heavy-jowled Englishman.
"These are words, and very good ones," I returned. "But what do you
mean by them? You have these things now, or you don't have them--just
as you happen to look at it. It usually depends on whether you are
successful or not. What does all this mean in action?"
"For one thing," said the square-jawed man seriously, "it means an end
of the sort of robbery by law that our friend Merwin here has suffered.
Now, twenty years ago he was a prosperous contractor. He took a lot of
contracts from old Peter Bolton for filling in some of these water-front
blocks down here. He spent two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, d'ye
know, and has been lawing for it ever since."
I turned and looked at the face of the old man with more interest. The
case of Merwin against Bolton was celebrated in the law books. It was
now before the Supreme Court for the sixth time. In the trial court the
juries had invariably found for Merwin with costs and interest, and the
appellate court had as invariably sent the case back for retrial on
errors committed by the lower court, until it had become an impersonal
issue, a jest of the law, a legal ghost, almost as far removed from
affairs of to-day as "Shelley's case" of unblessed memory.
Merwin looked up quickly, the dreamy gaze no longer clouding his eye.
"I have been kept out of my property for more than twenty years, sir,"
he said. "It has been a great wrong. If you are interested I should
like to tell you about it."
"I am pretty well informed about it already," I replied. "You have been
much abused." The legal jest had become a living tragedy, and I felt a
glow of shame for the futility of the law that had been unable to do
justice to this man.
"I have been made a poor man," said Merwin. "My money was stolen from me
by Peter Bolton, and I tell you, sir, he is the greatest scoundrel in
the city." And in a sudden flash of temper he struck his fist upon the
table.
"He ought to be hanged," said the heavy-jowled man.
"No, no," cried Parks. "It isn't Bolton you should blame. It is the
system that makes such things possible. Bolton himself is but the
creature of circumstances. As I have reason to know, his heart is
stirred by thoughts of better things for humanity. Hang Bolton and
another Bolton would take his place to-morrow. Abolish the system, and
no man could oppress his neighbor."
"But how are you going to abolish it?" I asked. "It won't go for fine
words."
"Rouse the people," cried Parks with passion. "The men who are suffering
from these evils are the strength of the nation. Those who profit by
the evils are a small minority. Once the people rise in their might the
oppressors must fly or be overwhelmed."
"Here's to guns, and the men who know how to use them!" said the
heavy-jowled man, draining his glass.
"_Oui, oui! Vive la barricade!_" croaked a harsh voice behind me, and I
turned to see the pasty face of H. Blasius over my shoulder.
"Shut up!" said Parks. "We're not ready to talk of guns and
barricades."
At this moment a sudden noise of scuffle and angry voices rose above the
sounds of conversation and argument that filled the room. Some one made
an abortive attempt to blow a police whistle; curses and blows thrilled
the air; and then the swinging doors fell apart and a man staggered in,
holding dizzily to the door-post for support. His hat was crushed, his
clothing torn, and his face covered with blood that seemed to blind him.
As he staggered into the saloon, ten or twelve young men, hardly more
than boys, crowded after him, striking at him with fists and clubs.
Their faces were hard at best, the lines written upon them by vice and
crime giving plain warning to all who might read; but now rage and
hatred and lust for blood lighted their eyes and flushed their cheeks,
till they might have stood as models for escapes from the infernal
regions.
"The cop!" cried a voice; and others took it up, and I recognized in the
battered man the policeman who had shown me my way.
"He's the cop as got Paddy Rafferty sent across the bay for ten years,"
shouted one of the hoodlums, striking a blow that was barely warded off.
"Kick him!" "Do him up!" "Kill him!" came in excited chorus from all
parts of the room and swelled into a roar that lost semblance of
articulate sound.
Parks and I jumped to our feet at the first sound of the riot.
"Here! this won't do!" said Parks roughly, throwing me back in my chair.
"Sit down! You'll get killed without doing any good. I'll settle
this." And before I could remonstrate he was running down the room
shouting wrathfully.
As I got to my feet again, I saw him pulling and hauling at the mob,
shouting lustily in the ears of the men as he threw them aside.
"Come on!" I cried. "We must take a hand in this." And at my call
Clark and the Englishman and the little German rose and followed in the
wake of the young agitator.
Parks worked his way into the crowd, shouting, appealing, using hands
and tongue and body at once to carry his point. He was soon at the side
of the policeman, who swayed, half raised his arms, and would have
fallen had Parks' arm not come to steady him. The shouting hoodlums
paused at this reinforcement. Then the leader, with a curse, struck
wildly at Parks' face, and the cries of rage rose louder than before.
At this moment, however, the tall, broad-shouldered Irishman, whom I had
noticed at my entrance, deftly caught the hoodlum with a blow on the
chin that sent him back into the midst of his band.
"Hould on!" he shouted in a resonant voice. "There's to be fair play
here! Here's two against the crowd to save a man's life. If there's
any more men here let them come next us."
"Here are four," I cried, and our reinforcement shouldered through the
throng to the side of the two defenders. The tumult stilled for a
little, and Parks seized the moment to burst into indignant speech. He
had a high, keen, not unpleasant voice, though it thrilled now with
anger and scorn, as he denounced the assault.
"He's the cop that got Paddy Rafferty sent up, I tell you," replied one
of the hoodlums. "We said we'd fix him and we done it."
"Well, you get home now or you'll be fixed yourself, sonny," said Parks.
"The cops will be on you in just three minutes by the watch. Git!"
"Come on, youse!" said the leader sullenly, rubbing his jaw and giving a
spiteful glance at the stout Irishman. "We'll fix these tarriers some
other time,"--and the band slunk out into the darkness.
"That's the kind of cattle that keep back the cause," cried Parks,
turning to the crowd with keen eye for the opportunity for speech. And
he went on with rude eloquence to expound the "rights of the people,"
which I judged from his language to be the right to work eight hours for
about eight dollars a day and own nobody for master.
"Well said for you, Mr. Parks!" said the Irishman. "I'm of your way of
thinkin'. My name's Kearney--Denis Kearney--maybe you've heard of me."
"Maybe I have," said Parks. "I hope to hear more of you, Mr. Kearney.
You came in the nick of time to-night."
The policeman now sat in a chair with his face washed and his head bound
up in a cloth, and with a sip of liquor was recovering strength and
spirit.
"There comes the boys," he said. "They've heard of the shindy." And in
another minute four policemen burst into the place.
"Cowdery's gang!" was the brief comment of the commanding officer.
"We'll have them under lock and key before morning."
H. Blasius had assumed a most pious expression in a most inconspicuous
position behind the bar, but dropped it as the policemen left.
"I've found my hodman," whispered Parks to me.
"Where?"
"Here. He isn't a hodman, but he's just as good. He's a drayman with a
voice like a fog-horn and a gift of tongue."
"And the brains?"
"I carry them under my hat," said Parks.
"What's his name?"
"Mr. Kearney--Mr. Hampden," said Parks, raising his voice and
introducing me gravely. Then, taking the arm of his new-found treasure,
Parks walked out of the saloon.
*CHAPTER III*
*A GLIMPSE OF SUNSHINE*
My watch-hands pointed to eight o'clock as I was ushered into Wharton
Kendrick's library. It was a handsome room, with handsome books and
handsome solid leather-covered furniture to match the leather-covered
volumes that lined its walls, but the effect of dark walls, dark
ceilings, and dark bindings was a trifle gloomy. I made up my mind that
my library should be a light and cheerful room with white and gold
trimmings, and was trying to decide whether it should be in the
southwest or southeast corner of my chateau in Spain, when my
architectural studies were interrupted by the opening of a door.
I rose in the expectation of meeting my employer; but it was not my
employer who entered. Instead of Wharton Kendrick I found myself facing
a young woman, who halted, irresolute and surprised, a pace or two from
the door. Had it not been for her trailing dress I should at first
glance have thought her but a young girl. She was short of stature and
slender of figure, and for an instant I had the idea that the long gown
and the arrangement of the yellow hair that crowned her head were part
of a masquerade. But when I looked in her face I saw that she was a
woman grown, and her years might have reached twenty.
"Why, I didn't know you were here," said the startled intruder. Her
voice was even-pitched, but it had a curious piquant quality about it.
As I hesitated in surprise, she repeated her thought in more positive
form: "I didn't know that any one was here."
"I was waiting for Mr. Kendrick. I was told to wait here," I said
apologetically.
The gas-light fell on her face and I saw that she was pretty. Her head
was small, but well shaped. Her color was that of the delicate blonde
type, but her large eyes were of a deep brown.
"I don't believe you know me, after all," she said, with a sudden
mischievous look.