Finally Fred grew strong enough to desert his couch at evening.  Up to this point he had been ignored by the nightly visitors, but now they made a place for him in the circle about the sputtering lamp.  It seemed, also, that, with his active presence, the talk began to assume general point and direction.  Storch had been giving them plenty of tether, but now he was beginning to pull up sharply, putting their windy theories to the test.  They were for clearing the ground, were they?  Well, so far so good.  But generalities led nowhere.  Why not something specific?  Wasn’t the time ripe for action—­thousands of men, walking the streets, locked out because they dared to demand a decent and even break?  And this in the face of all the altruistic rumble-bumble which war had evoked?  He played this theme over and over again, and finally one night with an almost casual air he said: 

“Take the shipyards, for instance ... forty-odd thousand men locked out while the owners lay plans to shackle them further.  Now is the chance.  Quit talking and get busy!”

It ended in a list being made of the chief offenders—­owners, managers, irascible foremen.  Fred Starratt listened like a man in a dream.  When Hilmer was named he found himself shivering.  These people were plotting murder now—­cool, calm, passionless murder!  There was something fascinating in the very nonchalance of it.

Storch’s eyes glittered more and more savagely.  He drew up plans, arranged incredible details, delivered specific offenders into the hands of certain of his henchmen.

“You are responsible for this man, now,” he used to fling at the chosen one.  “How or where or when does not interest me—­but get him, you understand, get him!”

One night a member said, significantly: 

“Everybody’s been picked but Hilmer...  What’s the matter, Storch, are you saving that plum for yourself?”

Storch rubbed his hands together, flashing a look at Fred.

“No...  There’s an option on Hilmer!” he cried, gleefully.

Fred tried to ignore the implication, but all night the suggestion burned itself into his brain.  So some one was to get Hilmer, after all!  Well, why not?  Hilmer liked men with guts enough to fight—­rabbit drives were not to his taste...  Among all the names brought up and discussed at these sinister gatherings about Storch’s round table Hilmer’s stood out as the ultimate prize.  No one spoke a good word for him and yet Fred had to admit that the revilings were flavored with a certain grudging respect.  He was an open and consistent tyrant, at any rate.

An option on Hilmer!  What a trick Storch had for illuminating phrases! ...  And his divinations were uncanny.  Why should he assume that Hilmer was in any way bound up in Fred Starratt’s life?