Peter could see it all very clearly when he came to figure over the
thing; he could see what a whooping jackass he had been. He might
have known that it was up to him to be careful, at this time of all
times, when he was suspected of having rubbed out Donald Gordon’s
pencil marks. They had picked out a girl whom Peter had never seen
before, and she had come and posed as Miriam’s friend, and had
proceeded to take Peter by the nose and lead him to the edge of the
precipice and shove him over. And now she would be laughing at him,
telling all her friends about her triumph, and about Peter’s thirty
dollars a week that he would never see again.
Peter spent a good part of the night getting up the story that he
was to tell McGivney next morning. He wouldn’t mention Rosie Stern,
of course; he would say that the Reds had trailed him to Room 427,
and it must be they had a spy in Guffey’s office. Peter repeated
this story quite solemnly, and again realized too late that he had
made a fool of himself. It wasn’t twenty-four hours before every Red
in American City knew the true, inside history of the unveiling of
Peter Gudge as a spy of the Traction Trust. The story occupied a
couple of pages in that week’s issue of the “Clarion,” and included
Peter’s picture, and an account of the part that Peter had played in
various frame-ups. It was nearly all true, and the fact that it was
guess-work on Donald Gordon’s part did not make it any the better
for Peter. Of course McGivney and Guffey and all his men read the
story, and knew Peter for the whooping jackass that Peter knew
himself.
“You go and get yourself a job with a pick and shovel,” said
McGivney, and Peter sorrowfully took his departure. He had only a
few dollars in his pocket, and these did not last very long, and he
had got down to his last nickel, and was confronting the wolf of
starvation again, when McGivney came to his lodging house room with
a new proposition. There was one job left, and Peter might take it
if he thought he could stand the gaff.
It was the job of state’s witness. Peter had been all thru the Red
movement, he knew all these pacifists and Socialists and
Syndicalists and I. W. Ws. who were now in jail. In some cases the
evidence of the government was far from satisfactory; so Peter might
have his salary back again, if he were willing to take the witness
stand and tell what he was told to tell, and if he could manage to
sit in a courtroom without falling in love with some of the lady
jurors, or some of the lady spies of the defense. These deadly
shafts of sarcasm Peter did not even feel, because he was so
frightened by the proposition which McGivney put up to him. To come
out into the open and face the blinding glare of the Red hate! To
place himself, the ant, between the smashing fists of the battling
giants!
Yes, it might seem dangerous, said McGivney, for a cowardly little
whelp like himself; but then a good many men had had the nerve to do
it, and none of them had died yet. McGivney himself did not pretend
to care very much whether Peter did it or not; he put the matter up
to him on Guffey’s orders. The job was worth forty dollars a week,
and he might take it or leave it.
And there sat Peter, with only a nickel and a couple of pennies in
his pocket, and the rent for his room two weeks over-due, and his
landlady lying in wait in the hallway like an Indian with a
tomahawk. Peter objected, what about all those bad things in his
early record, Pericles Priam and the Temple of Jimjambo, which had
ruined him as a witness in the Goober case. McGivney answered dryly
that he couldn’t let himself out with that excuse; he was invited to
pose as a reformed “wobbly,” and the more crimes and rascalities he
had in his record, the more convinced the jury would be that he had
been a real “wobbly.”
Peter asked, just when would he be expected to appear? And McGivney
answered, the very next week. They were trying seventeen of the
“wobblies” on a conspiracy charge, and Peter would be expected to
take the stand and tell how he had heard them advocate violence, and
heard them boast of having set fire to barns and wheat fields, and
how they had put phosphorus bombs into haystacks, and copper nails
into fruit trees, and spikes into sawmill logs, and emery powder
into engine bearings. Peter needn’t worry about what he would have
to say, McGivney would tell him everything, and would see him
thoroughly posted, and he would find himself a hero in the
newspapers, which would make clear that he had done everything from
the very highest possible motives of 100% Americanism, and that no
soldier in the war had been performing a more dangerous service.
To Peter it seemed they might say that without troubling their
conscience very much. But McGivney went on to declare that he
needn’t be afraid; it was no part of Guffey’s program to give the
Reds the satisfaction of putting his star witness out of business.
Peter would be kept in a safe place, and would always have a
body-guard. While he was in the city, giving his testimony, they
would put him up at the Hotel de Soto.
And that of course settled it. Here was poor Peter, with only a
nickel and two coppers in his pocket, and before him stood a chariot
of fire with magic steeds, and all he had to do was to step in, and
be whirled away to Mount Olympus. Peter stepped in!