Dennis, born in County Cork just thirty years before, filled adventurous roles since his eleventh year, mostly on the so-called “hell-ships” which beat up and down the mains of trade.  In 1868 he first set foot in San Francisco as an officer of the clipper “Shooting Star.”  Tiring of the sea he put his earnings in a draying enterprise.  This, for half a dozen years, had prospered.

Suddenly he cast his business interests to the winds.  Became a labor agitator.

Francisco Stanley, who had sought him, questing for an interview since morning, cornered him at last in Bob Woodward’s What Cheer House at Sacramento and Leidesdorff streets.  It was one of those odd institutions found only in this vividly bizarre metropolis of the West.  For “two bits” you could get a bed and breakfast at the What Cheer House, both clean and wholesome enough for the proudest.  If you had not the coin, it made little difference.  One room was fitted out as a museum and contained the many curious articles which had found their way into Woodward’s hands.  Another room was the hotel library; the first free reading room in San Francisco.

At the What Cheer House all kinds of people gathered.  Stanley, as he peeped into the library, noted a judge of the Superior Court poring over a volume of Dickens.  He waved a salute to tousle-haired, eagle-beaked Sam Clemens, whose Mark Twain articles were beginning to attract attention from the Eastern publishers.  Near him, quietly sedate, absorbed in Macaulay, was Bret Harte.  He had been a Wells-Fargo messenger, miner, clerk and steam-boat hand, so rumor said, and now he was writing stories of the West.  Stanley would have liked to stop and chat ... but Kearney must be found and interviewed before The Chronicle went to press.

Presently a loud, insistent voice attracted his attention.  It was penetrating, violent, denunciatory.  Francisco knew that voice.  He went into an outer room where perhaps a dozen rough-clad men were gathered about a figure of medium height, compactly built, with a broad head, shifting blue eyes and a dynamic, nervous manner.

“Don’t forget,” he pounded fist on palm for emphasis, “on August 18 we organize the party.  Johnny Day will be the prisident.  We’ll make thim bloody plutocrats take notice.”  He paused, catching sight of Stanley.  Instantly his frowning face became all smiles.  “Ah, here’s me young friend, the reporter,” he said.  “Come along Misther Stanley, and I’ll give yez a yarn for the paper.  Lave me tell ye of the Workingmen’s Trade and Labor Union.”

He kept Francisco’s pencil busy.

“There ain’t no strings on us.  We’re free from all political connections.  We’re for oursilves.  Get that.”

“Our password’s ‘The Chinese Must Go.’”

“How do you propose to accomplish this?” asked Stanley.

“Aisy enough,” returned the other with supreme confidence.  “We’ll have the treaty wid Chiny changed.  We’ll sind back all the yellow divils if they interfere wid us Americans.”